Henry W. Magnuski’s many accomplishments include the second-generation Walkie-Talkie and the research and development that laid the foundations for Motorola’s position in microwave and cellular communication.

Henryk Wladyslaw Magnuski was born in Warsaw, Poland on January 30, 1909. 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, his firm sent Mr. Magnuski to the United States to study the latest radio transmitter technology. In September 1939, Poland was invaded by Germany and World War II began. His return to Poland was impossible and the Polish Embassy in Washington, DC suggested that he could be of greater assistance to the war effort by remaining in the USA.

In 1940, Mr. Magnuski began working for the Galvin Manufacturing Company (the company changed its name in 1947 to Motorola Inc.). He has three patents relating to the design of Motorola’s second-generation "Walkie-Talkie", the SCR-300 FM. The design included a tuning control to simultaneously tune both the transmitter and the receiver, an automatic frequency control to ensure clear communication without critical precision tuning by the operator, an adequate power supply, a minimum number of crystals, and fungiciding of the unit to allow it to withstand tropical temperatures and humidity. Nearly 50,000 of the SCR-300 FM "Walkie-Talkie" units were produced during World War II.

In addition, Mr. Magnuski is credited with the development of the AN/CPN-6 Radar Beacon, a microwave device that assisted US Navy pilots to locate their carriers in low visibility conditions. For this effort, he received a US Navy Certificate for Outstanding Service.

Following the conclusion of World War II, Mr. Magnuski helped develop VHF cavity resonators that allowed adjacent channel operation, was a key designer for the Motorola Sensicon receiver that used a selective filter in the IF amplifier, and created microwave relay equipment that could transmit multi-channel telephone, data, and television signals. For Motorola’s Government Electronics Division, he developed the SSB Radio Central Concept AN/USC-3, RADEM system (chosen as one of the "100 Most Important Products of 1963" by Industrial Research Magazine) and the Deltaplex I digital troposcatter system and lightweight tropo equipment AN/TRC-105.

Mr. Magnuski developed 30 patents covering VHF and microwave communications, wrote or coauthored 32 technical papers, and was the sole author of a chapter in the Communication System Engineering Handbook. In 1964 he was elected a fellow of IEEE and was listed in the 1964 "Chicagoland—Center of Innovation" booklet as one of the ten most distinguished scientists and engineers who make Chicago their home. When he retired from Motorola, he was Associate Director of Research in Motorola’s Government Electronics Division. It can be said that Mr. Magnuski’s contributions laid the groundwork for Motorola’s position in microwave and cellular communication.

Mr. Magnuski retired from Motorola in 1970. He succumbed to cancer at his home in Glenview, Illinois on May 4, 1978. The Henry Magnuski Electrical and Computer Engineering professorship at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign was instituted in his honor in 2001 with a gift from his son, Henry S. Magnuski, a 1965 graduate of that institution.

H. Magnuski. Private Line Microwave Systems. IRE Professional Group on Vehicular Communications National Meeting - Detroit, Michigan, November 3, 1950

H. Magnuski. The Microwave Relay Communication System - General Technical Philosophy & Specific Engineering Solution. Fourth Southwestern IRE Conference - Houston Texas, May 17, 1952

H. Magnuski, Dr. William L. Firestone, Angus MacDonald. Modulation Sideband Splatter of VHF and UHF Transmitters. Proceedings of the National Electronic Conference, Vol 10 February, 1955

H. Magnuski. An Explanation of Fading in Microwave Relay Systems. IRE National Convention, March 21, 1955

H. Magnuski. An Explanation of Microwave Fading and Its Correction by Frequency Diversity. Winter General Meeting of the AIEE, January 30, 1956

H. Magnuski. Comparison of SSB and FM for VHF Mobile Service. Proceedings of the I.R.E, Vol. 44 No. 12, December, 1956

Dr. William L. Firestone, H. Magnuski, Roy A. Richardson. Single Sideband for Mobile Applications. AIEE Fall General Meeting - Chicago, Illinois, October 11, 1957

H. Magnuski. Jamming of Communications Systems Using FM, AM and SSB Modulation. IRE Transactions on Military Electronics, MIL-5 No. 1 8-11, January, 1961

H. Magnuski. Wideband Channel for Emergency Communications. IRE Transactions on Vehicular Communications, Vol. VC-10 No. 2, August, 1961

Willis DeHart, H. Magnuski. Analysis of Random Access Discrete Address System. IRE Eighth National Communications Symposium, October, 1962

H. Magnuski. RADA and Satellite Communications. 1962 National Symposium on Space Electronics and Telemetry - Miami Beach, October 2, 1962

H. Magnuski. Anti-Jamming Characteristics of RADAS. IRE Winter Convention on Military Electronics - Los Angeles, February, 1963

H. Magnuski. RADAS and Satellite Communication. National Symposium on Space Electronics and Telemetry, October 2, 1962

H. Magnuski. The Principles of Vehicular Communication Systems Design. IEEE First Symposium on Vehicular Communications Systems, May 25, 1967

H. Magnuski. Chapter 18 - Address Communication Systems. Communication System Engineering Handbook - Donald. H. Hamsher, Ed., June, 1967, McGraw-Hill, NY. ISBN 00-70-25960-7

Three Walkie-Talkie patents:

2,398,793 April 23, 1946 Radio Receiving System
2,408,791 October 8, 1946 Radio Communication System
2,409,139 October 8, 1946 Radio Receiving System

Sensicon receiver patent:

2,608,648 August 26, 1952 Highly Selective Radio Receiver
2,608,649 August 26, 1952 Highly Selective Radio Receiver

H. Magnuski's last patent, developed on his own, as part of research into cellular systems:

3,646,441 February 29, 1972 Digital Radio Communication Systems Using Repeaters Operating at Same Frequency