Daniel E. Noble

Daniel E. Noble, born October 4, 1901, lived at 59 Rubber Avenue and was the youngest of six children. The Naugatuck native was a pioneer in the field of electronics, and his inventions and designs changed the way radio communication systems worked.

A Naugatuck Daily News article on Mr. Noble, published February 25, 1952, in listing his accomplishments, states, “If there was some advice we could offer future generations yet unborn, in search of new worlds to conquer, it would not be 'Go west, young man.” Rather, it would be “Be born in Naugatuck.” The article goes on to say “as we rapidly turn the pages of Naugatuck’s century of history, we find that her native born have gone into all parts of the country and the world, attaining that elusive quality called success, but al'la little bit of Naugatuck.”

Dan attended Rubber Avenue School, Salem School, and Naugatuck High School. After a brief time in Arizona, he returned to Naugatuck in 1920. An early electronics experimenter and hobbyist, he set up his own and borrowed radio equipment in the Naugatuck Town Hall to receive the world’s first nationwide sporting event broadcast, the boxing match between heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey and France’s challenger, Georges Carpentier, held on July 2, 1921. A gathering of town residents listened to the announcer as Dempsey won in a fourth-round knockout with an estimated 300,000 people listening by radio nationwide.

As a student at the Connecticut Agricultural College (later Connecticut State College and in 1940, renamed the University of Connecticut), Dan built and put on the air the first college broadcast station in the country in 1922, quite an accomplishment as commercial broadcasting was only two years old at the time. Broadcasting three times a week for an hour, the programming included weather, information for farmers, and on-campus concerts. The station broadcast its first basketball game in 1925 when the college played Trinity.

After graduating from CAC, Dan attended Harvard and earned a graduate degree from MIT, and holds a doctorate in electrical engineering. He worked as an assistant professor at Connecticut State College, where he continued to develop the college radio station. His work there led to him working with Hartford radio stations WTIC and WDRC to set up relay stations in the 1930s. Dr. Noble helped build one of the first commercial FM stations in the country while working with WDRC. FM (frequency modulation) is a method of transmitting voice and music over the radio without the static and fading common with AM (amplitude modulation).

Between 1938 and 1940, Dr. Noble took on a project to design and build a statewide radio communications system for the Connecticut State Police. He was involved in every part of the project, from design, selecting multiple sites, and testing. This system became the first two-way radio telephone state police system in the country and the first FM radio telephone system in the world. The basic principles of that system are still used by countless public safety and commercial radio systems today.

A monument dedicated to this accomplishment sits outside the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection on Country Club Road in Middletown and has a plaque that reads:

Electrical Engineering Milestone

FM Police Radio Communication

A major advance in police radio occurred in 1940, when the Connecticut State Police began operating a two-way, frequency modulated (FM) system in Hartford. The state-wide system developed by Daniel E. Noble of the University of Connecticut and engineers at the Fred M. Link company greatly reduce static, the major problem of the amplitude modulated (AM) system. FM mobile radio became the standard throughout the country following the success of the Connecticut system.

June 1987

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

Dr. Noble joined Motorola as Director of Research in 1940. His pioneering work on FM radio led to his development of the Motorola SCR-300 “walkie-talkie” backpack radio used by the U.S. military during World War II. These radios saw heavy use in the Pacific Theater, the Normandy invasion, the Italian campaign, including Anzio, and were considered key equipment during the Battle of the Bulge. While at Motorola after the war, he continued working on communications systems for public safety and the Army Signal Corps.

In 1949, Dr. Noble set up Motorola’s semiconductor research lab in Phoenix, AZ., which eventually became the Semiconductor Products Division of Motorola. His research there helped improve the capabilities of transistors used in everything from portable radios to computers.

During Dr. Noble’s time at Motorola he held a variety of positions including Director of Research; General Manager of the Communications Division; Vice President and Director of Motorola, Inc.; Vice President and Director in charge of the Communications Division; Group Executive Vice President and Vice Chairman of the Board and Chief Technical Officer of the Corporation. His designs and technical developments at Motorola led to the company becoming a major electronics and communication manufacturer.

Dr. Noble held nine patents, wrote many technical papers, sat on several technical committees, and was an accomplished artist. His artwork appeared on several book and magazine covers. He and his wife, Mary, had three sons and a daughter. Dr. Noble died in Arizona on February 16, 1980, at 78.

In 2001, the Board of Directors of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) started the ''IEEE Daniel E. Noble Award'' for individuals contributing to emerging technologies. It is a fitting award named after a man who developed many technologies that are used today.