Alfred J. Gross

Canadian American engineer

• Born: February 22, 1918
• Birthplace: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Died: December 21, 2000
• Place of death: Sun City, Arizona

Gross developed the concepts and basic workings of many modern electronic devices, including the walkie-talkie and the pager. His visionary work led to the mass communications systems that exist today.

Primary fields: Communications; electronics and electrical engineering

Primary inventions: Walkie-talkie; pager; radio tuner

Early Life

Alfred J. Gross was born in Toronto, Canada, but his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, when he was an infant. When Gross was nine, his family was traversing Lake Erie on a steamboat when he discovered the ship’s radio transmission station as he explored the vessel. The radio operator permitted Gross to observe as he received and transmitted messages to distant stations, and Gross’s interest in wireless communication was sparked. He began tinkering with radios while still a young boy, dismantling and assembling them to learn their inner workings. By the time he was twelve, Gross had not only learned all there was to know about radio receivers but also built his first radio transmitter in his parent’s basement. Radio was still a new technology, and Gross’s transmitter, although homemade from mismatched parts, was one of the earliest and most powerful transmitters in the Cleveland area. As other radio enthusiasts began broadcasting on their own transmitters, amateur radio became more and more regulated. By the time he was sixteen, Gross had obtained an operating license for his transmitter, established a call sign, and joined the growing ranks of ham radio operators.

Two years later, in 1936, Gross enrolled in the electrical engineering program at Cleveland’s Case School of Applied Sciences (now part of Case Western Reserve University). He excelled in the technical and theoretical aspects of radio technology and was soon making contributions of his own. Working with state-of-the-art equipment, Gross soon moved beyond his meager homemade radio. Radio sets of the time operated in a low-power setting below 100 megahertz (MHz). Because additional power meant that radio transmission could be heard more clearly at longer distances, Gross began to look for methods of harnessing additional power to radio transmitters. At the same time, he also realized that more power meant more weight, and so radio risked remaining as immobile as his large transmitter at home. Therefore, while searching for additional transmitting power, Gross also sought to make radio more portable.

Life’s Work

Gross made his first great technical breakthrough in 1938, when he invented a powerful handheld transceiver using recent breakthroughs in battery technology and new lightweight vacuum tubes. The two-way radio device sent messages clearly because it operated in frequencies in the 200-300 MHz range rather than the usual 100 MHz. These upper ranges of the frequency scale became known as very high frequency (VHF) and ultrahigh frequency (UHF), which were generally allocated to television transmissions. Gross called his device a “walkie-talkie” because the transceiver allowed someone to move around while sending messages without remaining tied to a bulky transmitter.

With World War II raging in Europe, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency), the body responsible for conducting American intelligence operations during the war, took a keen interest in the walkie-talkie. The mobile radio was ideal for use by spies, who needed to be secretive yet able to relay information. Gross was recruited by the OSS to help develop a two-way communications system for the military; the ground unit was code-named “Joan,” and the air unit, “Eleanor.” Joan, officially the SSTC-502 transceiver, was a small but powerful device that weighed only four pounds and operated at 260 MHz. It permitted intelligence agents to relay information to overhead planes equipped with the Eleanor unit, the SSTR-6 transceiver. The Joan-Eleanor system was the first example of directional transmission. Unlike traditional transmitters, whose signals emanate from the antenna in all directions, the Joan-Eleanor system transmitted the message only upward to the airplane overhead. This allowed only the receiver in the airplane to hear the message; enemy eavesdropping was not possible. An added benefit was that the agent using the Joan device did not have to encode the message and could instead broadcast it in plain language. Encoding and decoding messages took time, but agents broadcasting messages in plain language could get their message across much faster and without any possible misinterpretation by the receiver. The Germans were unaware that the Allies possessed a system that could operate in the VHF frequencies, so the Germans lacked a means to locate the Joan transceiver when it was operating. Consequently, OSS agents could use the device with little fear of detection. The government did not declassify the documents relating to the Joan-Eleanor system until 1976.

After World War II, Gross turned his wartime achievements to peacetime purposes. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the government agency responsible for managing commercial radio transmission, permitted private transmitters to operate in the VHF and UHF frequencies. The FCC established the Citizens’ Radio Service Frequency Band (a “band” is a range of frequencies reserved for a specific purpose) in 1946 for the exclusive use of nonmilitary and nongovernment transmitters. With citizens’ band (CB) radio, common Americans could now transmit personal messages on the higher frequencies, ensuring longer-range and clearer transmission than that of the much larger, bulkier, and more expensive transmitters of only a few years earlier. Gross established a company in Cleveland, Gross Electronics, Inc., in 1948 to manufacture transmitters in the citizens’ band. Because of his expertise, his company was the first to receive FCC approval. Gross’s CB radios soon became the most reliable means to communicate for people in remote areas or in occupations that required constant motion. Farmers came to rely on them, and CB radios soon equipped trucks that crossed the country delivering freight. Law-enforcement and rescue agencies also employed CB radios as an inexpensive and reliable means to serve the public and save lives.

Gross next turned his mind to inventing devices for long-distance, personal communications. In 1949, he demonstrated “remote telephonic signaling” with a pocket-sized wireless device known as thepager. Gross saw it as a life-saving device, capable of summoning help by sending an electronic summons if someone could not speak. Doctors and rescue workers did not like to constantly carry the summons device, so the pager did not immediately become popular. Gross’s idea for the mobile telephone was also rebuffed. Gross envisioned the possibility of adapting the Joan-Eleanor system to personal use, proposing a modified walkie-talkie that used a directional antenna like that of the Joan unit. It could broadcast a voice message to a local receiver, which would in turn boost the power of the message and send it to the next receiver. Gross’s new phone would be both cordless and mobile, and it was based on the same principle that modern cellular phones use. Unfortunately, Gross could not get anyone to pay attention to the idea. At the time, the Bell Telephone Company had a monopoly on the telephone industry; it was not going to allow its dominance to end because of wireless transmissions, so it discouraged Gross from pursuing the idea.

According to legend, Gross also influenced pop culture. Chester Gould, the creator of the Dick Tracy comics, claimed that Gross once showed him a proposed portable radio small enough to fit onto a wristwatch. Gould was so enamored with the possibilities of the device that he asked Gross if he could use it in his comic strip, and from 1946 onward Dick Tracy kept in contact with his fellow police officers through his Gross-inspired wrist radio. Gross continued to tinker with new ideas for the rest of his life until his death in 2000.

Impact

Gross saw the need for modern communications long before anyone else did. Although he invented the walkie-talkie and the pager and pioneered the technology used in cellular and cordless phones, he never profited from these devices. People were not ready for a wireless world in the 1950’s, and by the time they were, most of Gross’s patents had expired. Today, cellular phones are a multimillion-dollar industry. The ability to securely send wireless data, which started with Gross’s walkie-talkie, defines the modern world. Modern business, personal communications, and international transmissions could not exist without secure data links. Cell phones resist eavesdropping, computers exchange data through a wireless modem, and assistance is a push of a button away thanks to Gross’s efforts.

Bibliography

Brown, David E. Inventing Modern America: From the Microwave to the Mouse. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002. A broad summary of the key inventions that have changed the world in recent decades, including Gross’s walkie-talkie.

Persico, Joseph E. Piercing the Reich: The Penetration of Nazi Germany by American Secret Agents During World War II. New York: Viking Press, 1979. A study of the intelligence operations undertaken by the OSS during World War II, this book contains a full account of the technical development of the Joan-Eleanor system, providing a clear understanding of Gross’s role in its development.

Walker, Jesse. Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America. New York: New York University Press, 2004. Addressing the constant struggle between free expression on the airwaves and the FCC’s attempts to regulate it, this book offers an interesting assessment of how CB radio created a more open climate on the airwaves. Walker argues that CB radios provided a means of expression that the FCC could not control and that Gross’s intent was to make CB radio available to everyone.