Both sending and receiving stations would, however, need some mechanism to encode and control the frequency-hopping pattern.

ECONOMIST: Player-piano pioneer

U.S. Patent No. 2, 292, 387 for a "Secret Communication System" was issued to Hedy Kiesler Markey and George Antheil in 1942. (Markey was the surname of a husband she had divorced in 1940.) The frequency-hopping technology was not put to use in World War II, but it was employed in 1962 during the blockade of Cuba.

WSJ: Book Review: Hedy's Folly

Lamarr termed the technique "frequency hopping, " a forerunner of the spread-spectrum technology that is used today in communications applications such as Wi-Fi.

WSJ: Book Review: Hedy's Folly