[1] Born in Akron, Ohio, Sweigert served five years in the US Army as a radio operator in World War II in Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Fiji and New Georgia assigned to the 145th Headquarters Company under the 37th Infantry Division (United States).

Sweigert credited his military experience for invention of the cordless telephone, citing experimentation with various antennas, signal frequencies, and types of radios.

[2] A Cleveland Plain Dealer article, published shortly after the patent was filed, documented the first public demonstration of the cordless phone with a picture of the device and the inventor.

[citation needed] The Plain Dealer reported that Sweigert used a part from his washing machine for the invention - the solenoid used to lift the phone's receiver when a current was sensed in the induction coil.

Sweigert, who suffered severe back pain from a war injury, saw the device primarily helping handicapped and elderly people.

Sweigert's heroes included Samuel Morse, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Lee DeForest, Edwin Armstrong, Albert Einstein, and Philo Taylor Farnsworth.

Whether Edison could actually perform this telegraphic feat has never documented, but Sweigert credited this story with his inspiration for a full duplex cordless telephone.

He also enjoyed the fact that Bell was a complete amateur compared with professional established laboratories of Elisha Gray and super-inventor Thomas Edison.

Sweigert greatly admired Philo Farnsworth for his invention of television, and more specifically his work with the cathode ray tube and the electronic amplifier.

While reading about Farnsworth and his later work on submarine detection equipment, he was led to a research and development position with Magnavox Corporation in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1969.

Sweigert taught electronics at the vocational college level in his later years for ITT Technical Institute in Fort Wayne despite his physical disability.