Alfred J. Gross.

American Inventor
1918–2001

Alfred J. Gross was the inventor of several handheld communication devices, including the first walkie-talkie. Gross began his life-long romance with wireless communications at age nine during a cruise on Lake Erie. While exploring the ship, Gross met the radio operator and was invited into the radio room to listen to the transmission. The sound of wireless telegraphy fascinated him so much that he begged his parents to buy him a crystal set, an early radio.

Shortly thereafter, Gross began to build a ham radio from scavenged junkyard materials. By age fifteen he was fabricating his own metal radio chassis in a metal working class. A year later he earned his amateur operator's license. He was now a ham radio operator. The next step for Gross was to build a handheld device—the walkie-talkie—to communicate. He wanted to...