VENICE, Fla.-Frank Gunther, who devised some of the first radio communications devices, died last Monday. He was 91.
Gunther helped create shortwave, two-way and FM systems, often working with the military and police and fire departments. In 1932, he built what is believed to be the first two-way mobile police radio system for the Bayonne, N.J., police department.
Gunther also installed one of the first one-way radios used on an aircraft. In 1931, he took part in the first public broadcast from an aircraft. A year later he installed the first two-way radio system on an airplane.
He joined Radio Engineering Laboratories in 1925. It was there that he constructed and operated an experimental station that was one of the first shortwave broadcasting systems.
In 1935, Gunther and Edwin Armstrong gave the first public demonstration of frequency modulation, or FM transmission. The signal was much superior in clarity to AM or shortwave.
