Obituaries
DONALD HINGS: 1907-2004

Tinkerer invented the walkie-talkie; B.C. resident won international acclaim
for developing a portable radio that forever changed battlefield
communication

TOM HAWTHORN
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Victoria BC

Donald Hings was a self-taught electronics wizard who modified his two-way
radio into the walkie-talkie that saved the lives of untold Allied soldiers
in the Second World War.

Mr. Hings, who has died at the age of 96, was credited as inventor of the
walkie-talkie, although he himself never claimed the title. By nature a
modest man, he preferred to describe his contributions as belonging to a
natural evolution of advancements in the burgeoning electronics field.

Others were not as reticent. Motorola unveiled a portable radio in the early
1930s, although it needed to run off a motorcycle battery and only
transmitted in Morse code. Some sources cite a team of U.S. Army technicians
at Monmouth, N.J. Toronto-born Al Gross claimed to have invented the two-way
portable radio in 1938, although by that time Mr. Hings's own radio was
already in production.

An inveterate tinkerer, Mr. Hings was hired by Consolidated Mining &
Smelting Co. (now Cominco) whose geologists sought mineral deposits in
isolated bush country, yet lacked a means of contacting civilization.

After much trial and error, Mr. Hings developed, in 1937, a portable two-way
voice radio for emergency transmissions. The radio was cased in a watertight
container painted a bright yellow for quick recovery should a float plane
sink. The radio was a marvel for bush pilots. Further advancements came
quickly, as such innovations as a speech scrambler, a noise filter, a voice
magnifier and improved earphones made the technology ever more useful on
battlefields.

The Canadian military put his models through rigorous testing, including
throwing a set over the edge of a seaside cliff. "By the time the army got
through with them," Mr. Hings once said, "they had to be built like tanks."

The walkie-talkies designed by Mr. Hings and made available to Canadian and
British troops in the Second World War were lighter, more durable and more
powerful than any issued by friend or foe. For the remainder of his life,
Mr. Hings would receive testimonials about the quality of his invention from
grateful veterans.

The son of a decorated Boer War veteran who became a grower of fruit trees,
Donald Lewes Hings was born on Nov. 6, 1907, at Leicester, England. His
parents soon became estranged and the boy moved with his mother to Canada at
age 3.

He was educated at grade schools in Lethbridge, Alta., and North Vancouver,
abandoning formal education early to help support his mother, a bookkeeper.
An inheritance of land brought them to Rossland in the rugged and isolated
Kootenay region of southeastern B.C.

Young Donald was obsessed by a new marvel of technology - the radio - and
built his first crystal set at age 14. More than eight decades later, he
would still be listed as a Ham radio operator with the call letters VE7BH.
As a young man, he helped establish the first radio station in the
Kootenays.

He worked as a labourer at a plywood plant before being hired by Cominco,
where his insatiable curiosity was indulged.

Mr. Hings travelled to Spokane, Wash., in 1939 to file U.S. patents on his
portable two-way radio. After an exhausting day of lecturing a patent lawyer
on the intricacies of electronics, a tired Mr. Hings was returning to his
hotel room when interrupted by excited newsboys. Germany had invaded Poland.
His homeland was at war.

The merits of his device in warfare were clear. He was invited to Ottawa to
demonstrate his equipment, after he was seconded to the National Research
Council. He worked as a civilian with the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals,
which would later name him an honorary colonel. The earliest examples were
delivered to Britain shortly after the Dieppe Raid of 1942.

Mr. Hings called his wireless radio a "Packset." Motorola had developed what
it called a "handie-talkie." The popular name is said to have been coined
during a presentation to reporters in Toronto, when a soldier demonstrating
the equipment was asked its purpose. "Well," the soldier said, "you can talk
with it while you walk with it." Apocryphal or not, the device has ever
since been known as the walkie-talkie.

A refrigerator factory in Toronto was retooled to manufacture the sets,
about 18,000 of which were produced during the war.

Most were designed for use in the European theatre, with its harsh winters,
while others were designed for the tropics or for use aboard a tank. The
Canadian design was widely felt among the Allies to be the superior
equipment. The sets lacked moving parts and were simple to operate, allowing
soldiers in the field to share in their comrades' reconnaissance.

Although stories about two-way radios had appeared in newspapers even after
the outbreak of war, the equipment was developed in an atmosphere of secrecy
until a decision was made by the brass to unveil the wonder device.

A Toronto newspaper's headline captured the awe: Miraculous walkie-talkie
like quarterback to army. "To radio men it is a midget miracle," the
newspaper reported, "a tiny but tough combined broadcasting and receiving
set, easier to operate than a hand-telephone set, light but tough enough for
paratroopers to take along in aerial assaults on enemy airfields, versatile
enough so, in combination, they become a military network of broadcasting
and receiving stations for attacking troops.

"To infantrymen, the walkie-walkie is like giving a football team a
quarterback."

For his service, Mr. Hings was made a Member of the Order of the British
Empire in 1946.

After the war, he bought a parcel of land atop Capitol Hill in the Vancouver
suburb of Burnaby. The spot, where he had camped as a Boy Scout, afforded an
unobstructed view of neighbouring Vancouver and its harbour. Mr. Hings built
a modest home for himself and his young family, surrounding it with towers,
radar sheds, electronic shops and laboratories. Over time, he sold lots of
land to his employees at cost, building a hilltop community of scientists.

His company, Electronic Laboratories of Canada Ltd., of which he was
president and chief engineer, won many contracts from the Department of
National Defence. Radar and antenna designs found application on the DEW
(Distant Early Warning) Line across northern Canada.

Mr. Hings registered more than 50 patents, including some related to the
thermionic vacuum tube and to a Doppler radar aircraft-landing system. Many
involved airborne and subsea geomagnetic instruments for exploration of
minerals. He even had a patent for an electronic piano.

The compound was a playground for innovative adults and curious children
alike. "I thought every kid had a mad scientist as a grandfather," said
Morgan Burke, the daughter of Mr. Hings's youngest daughter.

Mr. Hings retired in 1986. Although he had never attended a single
university class, he was a member of the American Geophysical Union and the
Association of Professional Engineers of B.C.

A fall several years ago left him an invalid, as doctors feared his weakened
heart could not withstand the stress of hip-replacement surgery. A rare
excursion from his home came three years ago when the visiting
Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson made him a Member of the Order of Canada
in a private ceremony in Vancouver.

Mr. Hings died at his Capitol Hill home on Feb. 25. He leaves a son, Donald
P. Hings, daughters Doreen Player, Elaine Cramer and Mary-Lynn Burke, 15
grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.

He was predeceased by his wife, the former Rakel Saarukka, who died in 1999
not long after marking their 69th wedding anniversary.

(ODXA)