"The phone rings in your pocket and you start talking!" Leonid Kupriyanovich, inventor of mobile phone

Leonid Kupriyanovich. Photo from Za Rulem (Behind the steering wheel) Magazine No.12 (1957)

Soviet radio engineer and inventor Leonid Kupriyanovich got a patent in 1957 for a wireless phone device. The first portable cell phone weighed 6.6 lbs. The inventor managed to reduce its weight to 1.1 lbs one year later. In 1961, he presented a portable handset weighing 0.15 lbs only. Back then, Ogoniok and TASS reported about him, and his inventions were covered in news footage. Nevertheless, cell phones were not produced in the USSR, and his invention was forgotten for about a quarter of a century.

...The March 1959 issue of Nauka i Technika (Science and Technology) magazine featured the following story. A posh cabrio ZIS limousine was driving along a highway in the scenic countryside. Two elegantly dressed men were in the back seat. One was a reporter for the film magazine, and the other was Leonid Kupriyanovich, a young radio engineer. The reporter was about to introduce his interviewee when Mr. Kupriyanovich's... cell phone rang! That's right! It rang in a fast-moving vehicle in Moscow of 1959. In fact, it appeared somewhat bulky. There's a sort of case with a dial and antennas. A receiver was wired to the case. The engineer picked up the receiver and answered a woman on the other end, "We have just driven through the Lenin State Farm."

Later, he explained to the reporter and the viewers that it was an automated direct-dial wireless telephone in his hands. Its transmitter connects wirelessly to a special automatic radiotelephone station, which, for its part, connects to an automated telephone exchange.

The conversation continued on the state farm field where the female farm workers were picking strawberries and waiting for a truck to collect the crates with the harvest. The reporter and the inventor invited them to call the director of the state farm to request the truck to come sooner.

And then there was another entertaining scene where a fisherman called his wife to brag about his bountiful catch. The funny thing is that everyday people were actually not surprised by the technological marvel although it was their first time seeing a portable phone that could be used to make calls from anywhere, be it the field or a fishing trip. Obviously, this is the filmmaker's idea, but we should also remember the background of the time. 

The USSR had already launched the first artificial satellite, and the upcoming outer space exploration looked pretty realistic. Back then, Soviet science was actually on the leading edge of scientific and technological progress. For instance, the first 1959 footage in that same cine magazine was about computers and computer-controlled machines. Therefore, the Soviet people were well informed about the latest developments in science, so even a portable phone was perceived as a matter of course.

Talented inventor from "the box"

We know very little about the inventor's life. Leonid Kupriyanovich was born in Moscow in 1929. He graduated from the Bauman Moscow State Technical University with a degree in radio electronics in 1953. It didn't take long and in 1955, Smena, a popular youth magazine, published an article about the young inventor who had developed a portable radio station weighing about 4.4 lbs., which was regarded as a fairly successful project back then. However, the radio engineer was not happy about it. He had a passion for mountain climbing and knew that communication with the station was vital for an athlete conquering a peak. And at the same time, every extra pound could drain his strength, which had reached its limit. For this reason, he soon developed a portable radio set weighing 2.7 lbs. with a communication range of 1.9 miles. A year later, he designed a portable radio set with a weight of only 0.7 lbs. and the size of two matchboxes. This invention brought the young radio engineer the First-Degree Diploma at the All-Union Exhibition of Amateur Radio Works.

Oleg Izmerov, a researcher of mobile communications history, wrote in his essay about Leonid Kupriyanovich that very little was known about the inventor's life. Actually, he worked in one of the secret scientific research institutes, so-called "the box" back then. However, the fact is that he was quite successful and well-established man at a fairly young age. Thus, he had a car in the early 1960s, which was quite rare at the time. Moreover, Leonid Kupriyanovich designed a wireless phone and even a special radio alarm system for his car.

“There's a phone ringing in your pocket...”

It was a portable radio set that inspired him to develop a telephone that could be used to make calls from any location without the need to stay at home or in a car. In 1957, Mr. Kupriyanovich got a patent for a "Calling and wireless channel switching device". The device got the name "radiophone", and the inventor used his own initials for it - "LC-1". The device weighed about 6.6 lbs. The batteries were inside the case and had a capacity of 20 to 30 hours. Antennas enabled the device to make and receive calls within a radius of 12 to 19 miles from the receiving device, i.e. an automatic radiotelephone station.

In an article for Yunyi Technik (Young Technician) magazine in 1957, Mr. Kupriyanovich wrote, "The range of the device is several tens of miles. If there is only one receiving device within this range, it would be enough to talk to any of the city residents who have a telephone and are at any distance."

He believed that wireless phones could be used in vehicles, airplanes, and ships. "When you take a radiophone with you, it is as if you were taking an ordinary telephone set but wireless. No matter where you are, you can always be reached by telephone. Your number has to be dialed from any landline. The phone rings in your pocket and you start talking," Mr. Kupriyanovich wrote in one of his articles. It was as if he had gotten a glimpse of our times today, foretelling how common and indispensable the cell phone would become. He also explained that receivers transmitting the signal to the telephone exchange would serve hundreds and thousands of subscribers. Mr. Kupriyanovich suggested installing base stations on high-rise buildings.

Just a year later, his new radiophone version weighed only 1.1 lbs. The commercial manufacturers of cell phones were able to achieve the same result in 1983, a quarter of a century later. Nevertheless, the talented radio engineer had made another breakthrough in his invention before that. In 1961, he showed reporters of the Novosti Press Agency a pocket cell phone weighing 0.15 lbs. only! The device was equipped with a small dial, which could be rotated with a pencil. The phone was powered by nickel-cadmium batteries.

"LK-2" as small as the palm of a hand

Moreover, the phone was capable of detecting and receiving a signal within a radius of 50 miles from the base station. The inventor wasn't going to stop there either: he planned to design a handheld device the size of a matchbox with a reach of 124 miles. "It can be safely said that it will soon be widely used in transport, the city telephone network, manufacturing, and construction sites," Leonid Kupriyanovich wrote in Nauka i Zhizn (Science and Life) magazine.

In 1961, Mr. Kupriyanovich reported in Izobretatel i Ratsionalizator (Inventor and Rationalizer) magazine that one of the enterprises was preparing mass production of radiophones. According to the inventor's estimates, such a model would cost about 30 to 40 rubles.

However, this project was never implemented for unknown reasons. Probably, no prospects were perceived in it. Some historians think that Soviet government wasn't interested in non-controlled citizens equipped with smartphones at the time. All the more, in the 1960s, the USSR developed the Altai automobile communication service when telephone equipment was installed in the car of high-ranking officials. That was deemed to be sufficient. Another factor was the high costs for mobile communications development in the 1960s. Developing mobile communications for a few hundred government officials was one thing and making it available on a mass scale was quite another.

As a result, in the 1960s, Leonid Kupriyanovich shifted from wireless communication to a new and promising field at the nexus of electronics and medicine. He developed Rythmoson devices which promoted the idea of training people in their sleep. The idea was to input the necessary information into the subconscious during a special sleep. However, even this task ended up being not implemented since offered technologies were seen as extremely unconventional in terms of morals and ethics.

Eventually, the engineer used his device to treat patients with sleep. Some reports suggest that he used to treat high-ranking patients in the Kremlin's chambers as well. The inventor passed away in 1994. He saw the very dawn of the era of ubiquitous mobile communications.