Henryk Magnuski

Henryk Władysław Magnuski (1909 Warsaw -1978) was a Polish telecommunications engineer who worked for Motorola in Chicago. He was the inventor of the first Walkie-Talkies and one of the authors of his company success in the fields of radio communication.

Magnuski was born on January 30, 1909 in Warsaw. Having lost both parents at a relatively early age, he supported himself and his sister Janina by fixing and installing radios for the Polish military. He received his degree from Warsaw University of Technology in 1934 and started working for the State Tele and Radiotechnical Works (Państwowe Zakłady Tele i Radiotechniczne) in Warsaw.

In June 1939 he was sent by his company to New York in order to study the latest American projects of radio transmitters. Soon after his arrival to the United States Poland was invaded by Germany and World War II broke out. His return home became impossible.

In 1940 he started working for the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation in Chicago (the company changed the name in 1947 to Motorola). He is credited with three patents related to the design of Motorola's SCR-300 FM "Walkie-Talkie" radio, a hugely popular unit with American forces in Europe, and he received a U. S. Navy Certificate of Commendation for Outstanding Service for development of the AN/CPN-6 Radar Beacon, a microwave device which aided carrier pilots to find their ship during low visibility conditions.

After the war he did not return to the communist People's Republic of Poland and stayed in the USA. He helped in the development of VHF cavity resonators that allowed adjacent channel operation, was a key designer for the Motorola Sensicon receiver which used a selective filter in front of the IF amplifier, and created microwave relay equipment for use in transmitting multi-channel telephone, data and TV. In Motorola's Government Electronics Division he developed the SSB Radio Central Concept AN/USC-3, Motorola’s RADEM system (RADAS), the Deltaplex I digital troposcatter system and lightweight tropo equipment AN/TRC-105.

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