Can You Hear Me Now?

Don did.

Don worked for Cominco … and developed a device he called a packset. For Cominco, the packsets became absolutely critical for bush pilots who had to fly their planes between remote sites in the Canadian North.

For the rest of the world … they didn’t really care so much. But then World War II broke out … and suddenly everyone was interested in Don’s packset … so Cominco loaned Don to the Department of Defence and National Research Council to redevelop the packset … the military wanted it to be lightweight, perform well in all conditions, be durable, have no moving parts, and be extreme simple to operate … so it took a while … but Don developed all types of configurations … and pretty soon thousands and then millions of packsets were being used everywhere.

Today, 80 years after being invented the packset devices created by Don Hings are world famous … but you know them by another name … a name coined by journalists at the time because of what people did when using the now portable packset and that was walking and talking … the walkie talkie.

The Walkie Talkie is a great idea … because when you solve a problem for one group … it might just solve a whole other problem for someone else!