IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION,VOL. AP-33, NO.

2 , FEBRUARY 1985 131

Antennas Since Hertz and Marconi

JOHN D. m u s , LIFEFELLOW,IEEE

M Y TALK HAS three parts: fust a bit of history, then some

things personal, and finally a peek into the future.
It was three centuries ago that Isaac Newton formulated his
famous Law of Universal Gravitation. Because his lawviolated
theaccepted principle that action-at-a-distanceisimpossible,
Newton himself was reluctant to announce it and be subjected
toattack.Edmund Halley, who discovered thecometwhich
bears his name, wasa friend of Newton’s andhe persuaded
Newtontolet him presentthe law beforetheRoyalSociety.
This Halley did for Newton in London in 1685 and, as Newton
hadanticipated, he and his law were attacked. When Halley’s
comet comes aroundnextyear,rememberwhat Halley did
for Newton. Fig. 1. Heinrich Hertz’s complete radio system of 1886 with end-loaded 112-
Butby 1839, when Michael Faradaypresentedthe results wavelength dipole transmitting antenna (CC‘) and resonant loop receiving
of his “Experimental Researches,” with curved linesof force antenna (abcd). With induction coil ( A )turned on, sparks at gap B induced
sparks at gap M in the receiving antenna. (From Heinrich Hertz’s book
extendingthroughempty space, the world was at last ready Electric Waves, MacMillian, 1893.)
t o embrace action-at-a-distance.
Based on Faraday’s work, James Clerk Maxwell unified the
theories of electricity and magnetism in a profound and elegant
manner in his “Treatise” pubhhed in 1873. He postulated that
lightwas electromagnetic in natureandthatelectromagnetic
waves of other lengths were possible. But in the years that fol-
lowed,many were skeptical of his ideasbecause,among other
things, his theory gave a relative permittivity of 81 forwater
whereas the acceptedvalue was less than two.
TheAmerican Institute of ElectricalEngineers (NEE) was
organized 100 years ago, but radio was unknown and there were
no antennas. X-rays had not been discovered, relativity had not
been proposed, neither had quantum theory. Cosmicrayswere
unknown, there were no airplanes and blood letting with leeches
was a standard medical cure-all. Although the electric telegraph
was king, Edison’s incandescent light was making painfully slow Fig. 2. Displayof Hertz’s radio apparatus. Sphere loaded 1/2-wavelength
headway against the entrenched gas illumination industry. In the dipole and spark gap for 4 m is in foreground. Cylindrical parabolic
reflector with transmitting dipole for 30 cm is at left (dipole with spark gap
United States, controversy raged over whether the electric street is vertical on parabola focal axis). Resonant receiving loop on wooden
car or the horse-drawn car was better, and in England, the Red frame is resting inside parabola (at right). (Photo by E. C. Jordan.)
Flag Act required thatany self-propelled highway vehicle be
preceded by a man carrying a red flag by day and a red lantern sparks were produced at a gap at the center of the dipole, spark-
I by night. So it was in 1881. ing also occurred at agapin the nearby loop. During the next
A few years earlier the Berlin Academy of Science had offered two years, Hertzextended his experimentsanddemonstrated
a prize for research on therelationbetweenelectromagnetic reflection,refractionandpolarization, showing that except for
forces and dielectricpolarization.Heinrich Rudolph Hertz con- theirmuchgreaterlength,radio waves were one with light.
sidered whethertheproblem could be solved with oscillations Hertzturnedthetide against Maxwell around.Hertz became
using Leyden jars or open induction coils. Although he did not the father of radio.
pursue this problem, his interest in oscillations had been kindled, Hertz’s initial experiments were conducted at wavelengths of
and in 1886 as professor at the Technical Institute in Karlsruhe about 4 m while his later work was at shorter wavelengths around
he assembled apparatus we wouldnow describeasa complete 30 cm. I have constructed and display here a working replica of
radio system with an end-loaded half-wave dipole as transmitting Hertz’s earliest 4-m system but I’m not going to fue it upbecause
antennaand a resonant square loopantenna as receiver. When it would knock out a lot of radios and TV‘s.
If a William Proxmirehad been around in Hertz’s time,
Hertz’s radioapparatus might have received a Golden Fleece
Manuscript received September 10, 1984.
The author is with the Radio Observatory, 2015 Neil Avenue, The Ohio State Award as a complete waste of moneyand effort-a toy of absolutely
University, Columbus, OH 43210. no practical value. Yet from this simple, fundamental beginning

1$01.OO @ 1985 IEEE

001 8-926X/85/0200-O 13
132 IEEE TRANSACTIONS
ANTENNAS
ONAND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-33, NO. 2 , FEBRUARY 1985

has come all of wireless, all of radio, all of TV, and all of space
communications.
However, Hertz’s equipment did remain a laboratory curiosity
for nearlya decadeuntil 20-year-oldGuglielmoMarconi, on a
summer vacation in the Alps,chanced upon a magazine which
described Hertz’s experiments.YoungGughelmowonderd if
these Hertzian waves could be used to send messages. He became
obsessed with the idea, cut short his vacation and rushed home to
test it.
In spacious rooms on an upper floor of the Marconi mansion Fig. 3. The fan, grid, and square cone antennas were popular types at the turn
in Bologna, Gughelmorepeated Hertz’s experiments. His first of the century. (Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony, by A. P. Morgan,
Henley, 1912.)
success late one night so elated hun he couldn’t wait until morn-
ing t o break the news, so he woke his mother and demonstrated
his radio system to her.
Marconi quicklywent on t o addtuning, big antennaand
ground systems for longerwavelengths and was able to signal
over large distances. In mid-December 1901, he startledthe
world byannouncingthathehad received radio signals atSt.
John’s, Newfoundland, which had been sent across the Atlantic
from Poldhu inCornwall,England. The scientific establishment
did not believe his claim because they theorized thatradio
waves, like light, shouldtravelinstraight lines andcould not
bend around the earth from England to Newfoundland. But the
Cable Company believed Marconi and sewed himwith awrit
to cease and desist because it had a monopoly on transAtlantic
communication.The cable company’s stockhadplummeted
following Marconi’s announcement and it threatened to sue him
for any loss of revenue if he persisted. But persist he did. and a
legal battle developed that continued for 27 years until finally
the cable and wireless groups merged.
Onemonthafter Marconi’s announcement,the AIEEheld
a banquet at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria to celebrate the event.
Charles Protius Steinmetz, President of the AIEE. was there as
was AlexanderGraham Bell, butmanyprominent scientists
boycotted the banquet. Their theories had been challenged and Fig. 4. Square cone antenna at Marconi’s Poldhu, England, station in 1905.
they wanted no part of it. The 70 m wooden towers support a network of wires which converge to a
point just above the transmitting and receiving buildings between the
A year later, in 1903, Marconi began regular transAtlantic mes- towers. I
sage service between Poldhu, England: and stations he built near
Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and SouthWellfleet on Cape Cod.
The Poldhu station had a fan aerial supported by two 60 m resistances only an ohm or less. Losses in heat and corona re-
guyedwooden poles. As receiving antennafor his fEst trans- duced efficiencies but with the brute power of many kilowatts,
Atlantic signals at St. John’s, Marconi pulled up a 200 mwire signlficant amounts were radiated.
with a kite, working it against an array of wires on the ground. In1912the Wireless InstituteandtheSociety of Radio
A later antenna at Poldhu, typical of antennas at other Marconi Engineers merged to formtheInstitute of Radio Engineers.
stations, consisted of aconical wire cage. This was held up by In the fust issue of the Institute’s Proceedings, which appeared
four massive self-supporting 70 m wooden towers. With inputs of in January1913,it is interestingthatthefust articlewas on
*
50 kW, antenna wires crackled and glowed with corona at night. antennasand in particular on radiation resistance. Another
Local residents were sure that such fueworks in the sky would Proceedings article noted the youthfulness of commercial wire-
alter the weather. less operators. Most were in their late teens withpractically none
Rarely has an invention captured the public imagination like over 25. Wireless was definitely a young man’s profession.
Marconi’s wireless did at the turn of the century. We now call it The era before the first World War was one of long waves, of
radio but then it was wireless: Marconi’s wireless. After its value spark,arcandalternatorsfor transmission; and of coherers,
at sea had been dramatizedbythe S. S. Republicand S. S. Fleming valves and De Forest audions for reception. Following
Titanic disasters,Marconi was regarded with a universal awe thewar? vacuum tubes became available for transmission; con- c
and
admiration seldom matched. Before wireless, complete tinuous waves replaced sparkandradiobroadcasting began in
isolation enshrouded a ship at sea. Disaster could strike without the 200 to 600 m range.
anyone on the shore or nearby ships being aware that anything Wavelengths less than 200 m were considered of little value
hadhappened. Marconichanged all that. Marconibecame the and wererelegated to theamateurs.In 1921, theAmerican
wizard of the airwaves. Radio L e a g e sentPaulGodley to Europe to try to receive a
At typical wavelengths of 2000 to 10 000 m, the antennas Greenwich, CT, amateurstationoperating on 200 m. Major
were a small fraction of a wavelength in height and their radiation Edwin H. Armstrong,inventor of thesuperheterodyne, con-
Ir
KRAUS: ANTENNAS SINCE HERTZ AND MARCONI 133

Fig. 5 . Rotating Bruce beam antenna of Karl G. Jansky with which he discovered radio waves from the center Ofour galaxy in 1932
(Bell Labs.)

Fig. 7 . First helicalbeamantenna.Rotatinghand-held dipolegave constant

response, indicating circularly polarized radiation from the open end of the
helix.

amateurs.It was abreakthrough,and in theyears whichfol-

lowed,wavelengths from200 117 down came into wide use for
long-distance communication.
Atmospherics were the bane of the long waves, especially in
the summer. They were less on the short waves but still enough
of a problem in 1930 for the Bell Telephone Laboratories to have
Fig. 6. Ninemeterparabolicdishantenna of GroteReberwhich he used to Karl Jansky study whether they came from certain predominant
produce the first mapsof the radio sky. Built in 1937, Reber’s antennais the directions.Antennasfortelephone service withEurope might
prototype of the modem dish antenna.
then be designed with nulls in these directions.
Janskyconstructedarotating eight-elementBruce curtain
structed the transmitter with the help of several other amateurs. with reflector operating at 14 m. Although he obtained the de-
Godley set up his receiving station near the Furth of Clyde in sired data on atmospherics from thunderstorms: he noted that in
Scotland. He had two receivers, one a 10 tube superheterodyne, the absenceofall suchstaticthere was alwayspresent a very
and a Beverage antenna. On December 12; 1921, just 20 years to faint hiss-like static w h c h moved completelyaroundthe com-
the day after Marconi received his first transAtlantic signals on pass in 24 h. After many months of observations, Jansky con-
a very longwavelength, Godley received messages fromthe cluded that it was coming from beyond the earth and beyond the
Connecticutstationandwent on to log over 30 other U.S. sun. It was a cosmic static coming from the center of our galaxy.
134 TRANSACTIONS
IEEE ANTENNAS
ON AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-33,
NO. 2 , FEBRUARY 1985

Fig. 9 . Panorama showing howtheskywouldappearifour eyes were

sensitive to radio waves instead of light as produced by converting 96-helix
map to shades of light and dark. The panorama is a Mercator projection. To
appreciatemore fully itsthree-dimensional significance, imagine thatthe
left and right sides are stretched around behind your head and the top pulled
over your headso that the map completely surrounds you like the actual sky.
The bright arch of radiation is from our Milky Way galaxy. The bright dots
are radio sources none of which correspond to any visible star.

Fig. 8. Ninety-six helix radio telescope antenna at The Ohio State University
in 1953. Radio maps produced with this antenna were the most detailed of U
the time. (See Fig. 9.)

Jansky’s serendipitous discovery of extraterrestialradio waves

opened a new window on the universe. Jansky became the father
of radio astronomy.
For many years, or until after WW 11, only one person, Grote
Reber, followed up on Jansky’s discovery in asignificant way.
Reberconstructed a 9-m parabolic reflectorantennaoperating Y
at about 2 m which is the prototype of the modern parabolic
dish antenna.With it he made the first radio maps of the sky.
I was 10 when I hauled up my first antenna to receive radio
broadcaststations.The year was 1920. I soon subscribed to Fig. 10. Clarke orbit Fleetsatcorn satellite with helical antennas for transmit-
QST, becamealicensed amateuranderected a succession of ting and receiving. A number of these satellites give global coverage. (TRW
Carp.)
transmitting antennas. The firstwasa single-wire fed half-wave
dipole, developed by “Bill“ Everitt and John Byrne of Ohio 4
State University, which came to be known as the Windom antenna. tively was a small paper which I submitted to the ’Proceedings‘
Twenty years later I took Bill Everitt’s place atOhioState. in 1932 only to have it rejected by a reviewer whodeniedits
Next I builtFranklinantennas, dipoles with reflectors, Bruce validity. When I prepared ‘DirectionalAntennas’I tuckedthis
curtain arrays and rhombics. older material into the middle of this bulky manuscript on the
In 1932 I joined the Institute of Radio Engineers. Thefol- assumption that thereviewer would not notice it.”
lowingyear I received myPh.D. degree in physics fromthe George Brown’s ruse workedandthe worldfmallylearned
Universityof Michigan, publishlng my dissertation research on of his idea but only after it had languished in obscurity for five
the propagation of 5-m waves in the Proceedings. I readevery years. Recalling Newton, Maxwell, Marconi and Brown, it seems
issue withinterest.OnopeningtheJanuary1937 Proceedings, that the establishment is often slow to see the light but this is
I delved into a monumental treatise on “Directional Antennas” simply par for the course.
by George H. Brown of RCA. Buried deep in the article was, to Ifollowed upwithpublicationsonfoldeddoublets,multi-
me, an astonishingcalculation whichindicatedthat spacings wire dipoles and in 1940 with the corner reflector. For antennas
of one-eighth wavelength or less had higher gains than the cus- no larger than awavelength, thecorner reflector offers high
tomary larger spacings. gain, wide bandwidth and is easier to construct than a parabolic
Within oneweek of thetime I received my Pvoceedings I reflector. Millions have been built.
had designed andbuilt an array of four close-spaced half-wave Then came WV 11, microwaves and radar. Following the war,
dipoles at my amateur station W8JK. Operating at a wavelength radio astronomy developed rapidly. Bernard Lovell at the Univer-
of 20 m, the array was phenomenally effective. I published the sity of Manchester led the way in big dishes while Martin Ryle
design and in subsequent articles extended it to a whole family of at Cambridgepioneered interferometersandaperture synthesis
close-spaced arrays. Theantennasoutperformed all othersand with dipole and corner reflector arrays.
came to becalled W8JK arrays. In1946, a few monthsafterjoiningthefacultyatOhio
In 1937 close-spacing wasanew and revolutionary concept. State University, I attendedanafternoonlectureon traveling-
In George Brown’s autobiographyhestates, “Ironically, the wave tubes by a famous scientist who was visiting the campus.
particular portion of my paper which John Kraus used so effec- In these tubes an electronbeam is fireddownthe insideofa
KRAUS: ANTENNAS SINCE HERTZ AND MARCONI 135

- b 1 . *
Fig. 1 1 . “Big Ear,” the 110-111radio,telescope atThe Ohio State University with which the most distantknown objects in the
. a .
. . universe were discovered.

7 krlome‘ers

Fig. 12. Soviet scheme for measuring the distance of astronomical objects using the Fresnel-Fraunhofer field effect.

long helix for amplification of waves traveling along the helix. Following Sputnik,the helicalcoilbecame theworkhorseof
The helix is only asmall fraction ofawavelength in diameter space communications, being employedboth on satellites and
andacts as aguiding structure.Afterthelecture, I asked the atearthstations. Many US. satellitesincluding itsweather
visitor if he though a helix could be used as an antenna. “No,“ satellites, Amsat,Fleetsatcom, Navstar,Leasat, Westar, and
he replied, “I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work.” The finality of his Tracking and Data-Relay satellites all have helical coil antennas,
answer set me thinking. If the helix were larger in diameter than the latter with arrays of 30, while the Russian satellites also have
in traveling-wave tube, I feltthatit would have to radiate in helical coil antennas, their Ekran satellites being equipped with
some way but how I did not know. I determined to find out, arrays of no less than 96 helicals. The helicalcoil antenna has
and that evening in the basement of my home I wound a seven- also beencarried to the Moon and Mars. I speculate that there
turn helicalcoil of wire one wavelength in circumference for may be more helical coil antennas in space than any other kind.
operation at 12 cm. I was thrilled to find that it produced a sharp In 1956 we began constructionatOhioState of a 110-m
beamofcircularlypolarized radiation off its open end. In the standing-parabola tiltable-flat-reflector radio telescope of unique
days and years that followed, I embarked on an extensive set of design foroperationupto 4 GHz. Duringthe following two
measurements and published a series of articles, with my students decades we used thisantenna, called “Big Ear,”in an all-sky
Claude Wdliamson, Otto Glasser, and Thomas Tice collaborating survey thatlocated 20 000 radio sources and discovered what
on some of them. We showed that in its beam mode, ahelical turnedoutto be themostdistantknownobjects in the uni-
coil is asupergain antenna with almost constant resistive input verse at distances of 15 billion light years. And for the past 10
and very wide bandwidth. Furthermore, it is noncritical to an years Big Ear has been engaged in the world’s longest running
unprecedented degree. I t is also easy to use in arrays because of search for the real ET. A 300-m telescope of the samedesign
an almost neghgible mutual impedance. I also derived equations as Big Ear has been constructed at Nancay, France,a stilllarger
and
suitable for engineering design purposes. one 600 m across was recently completed near Zelenchukskaya,
When we built our first radio telescope at Ohio State in 1951, in the Soviet Union.
it consisted of a 96-helix array 50 m long operating at 250 MHz. You are all familiar with the fact that the pattern of an an-
136 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-33, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 1985

IA Gravitational
Lens

Star
-

Fig. 16. Gravity lens antenna with star, like the sun, as central mass can
provide a gain of 70 dB. (From Our Cosmic Universe, by John Kraus,
.~ . ~
Cygnus-Quasar Books, 1980.)
Fig. 13. The Cyclops concept. Start with a few 100-m dish antennas...

the phase front from the distantsource. With three 3-km diameter
dishes in space, one near the earth’s orbit and two near Saturn’s,
it should be possible at centimeter wavelengths to measure the
distanceof even themostdistantobjects in the universe. At
present, the distance to such objects is inferred by very indirect
methods and a direct measurement by the Soviet scheme would
be a great advance.
Anothergandiose proposal forthefuture is the Cyclops
antenna consisting of anarray of 2000 100-m dishescovering
an area of about 20 k m 2 .
Another concept ofgreat potential is the gravity lens. You
simply‘use a large mass to bend the radio waves to a focus. For
example, -at 1 mm wavelength with the sun as the mass, you can
expect a gain of 70 dB along a semi-infinite focal line. Thus, if
you have a 100 m dish, the gravity lens makes it equivalent to
an array of 10 million such dishes. So you see, we have hardly
Fig. 14. ... add more dishes if needed in order to find the real ET. touched the realm of really high-gain antennas.
With mankind’s activities expanding into space, the need for
antennas will grow toanunprecedented degree. Antennas will
provide the vital links to andfromeverythingoutthere.The c
future of antennas reaches to the stars. One hundred years from
now, in 2084, will our present technology seem as primitive as
this transmitter of Hertz now appearsto us?
REFERENCES
J. Billingham, Ed., “Project Cyclops, a design study of a system for
detecting extraterrestrial life ,” NASAlAmes Res. Center. Moffen
Field, CA, 1970.
G. H. Brown, “Directional antennas,” Proc. IRE, vol. 2 5 , pp. 78-145, L
Jan. 1937.
-, “And part ofwhich I was,” Angus Cupar, 117Hunt Drive,
Princeton, NJ, 1982.
-, “Marconi.” Cosmic Search, vol. 2, no. 2, serial 6, Spring 1980.
Von R. Eshleman, “Gravitational lens of the sun: Its potential for
observations and communications over interstellar distances,” Sci., vol.
205, p. 1133, Sept. 14, 1979.
M. Faraday, “Experimental researches in electricity,” B. Quaritch,
Fig. 15. Ultimate Cyclops with 2000 100-m dish antennas covering an area of London, p. 1839, 1855.
20 km*. (Figs. 13, 14, and 15 by NASA.) H. R. Hertz, Electric Waves. London: MacMillian, 1893; New
York: Dover, 1962.
N. Kardashev, J. Shklovsky, V. Gorshkov, et al., Academy of Sciences,
i
tenna is a function of the distance unless the distance is greater U.S.S.R., Space Research Inst. Moscow, Rep. PR-373, 1977.
J. Kraus, Antennas. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950.
than acritical value equalapproximately to the squareof the -, Big Ear. Cygnus-Quasar, 1976.
antenna diameter divided by the wavelength. A group of Soviet -, Our Cosmic Universe. Cygnus-Quasar, 1980.
scientists has proposed that this Fresnel-Fraunhofer field effect Marconi, D., M y Father Marconi. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962.
beemployed to measure the distance of astronomicalobjects. .~~~
i13i -
J. C. Maxwell. A Treatise on Electricitv and Mametism. London.
England: Oxford Univ. Press, 1873, 19G.
In effect the schemesimplymeasures the radius of curvature of [14] I. Newton, Principia. Cambridge, 1687.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-33, NO. 2 , FEBRUARY 1985 137

John D. Kraus (A’32-M’43-SM’43-F’54-LF’76) received the Ph.D. degree editions of Antennas and Radio Asfronomy. As director of the Radio
from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1933. Observatory, he is working with area universities and high-tech business men to
Heis Director of the Radio Observatory and Taine G . McDougal Professor form a consortium to operate the observatory as a regional educational and
Emeritus of Electrical Engineering and Astronomy at The Ohio State Univer- research facility.
sity. He has been active in antenna development for over 50 years and is the Dr. Kraus is the author of hundreds of technical articles and of the widely-
inventor ofmany types of antennas including the comer reflector, helical used textbooks Electromagnetics, now in its third edition, Anrennas and
antenna, closed-spaced (W8JK) arrays, multiwire doublets and steerable beam Radio Astronomy. He has also written two popular books, Big Ear and Our
arrays. He is currently active as an antenna consultant while also preparing new Cosmic Universe.

Early History of the OSU ElectroScience Laboratory

GEORGE SWCLMR, LIFE FELLOW, IEEE

AbsCract-The early history of the Antenna Laboratory (the name was who has access t o much of the untold story of the origin of the
later changedto the ElectroScienceLaboratory)ofTheOhioState Laboratory, so I finally accepted his invitation. I hope my ac-
University is sketched. The development of scale model antenna techniques count will help to illustrate what is wrong with the history of
is described, as applied to measuring the patterns of aircraft and missile
antennas. Other projects included one for measuring full-scale antenna technology.
patterns of vehicularantennasfor the U.S. Armyandanother on the
development of a CW technique for studying the reflections from radar THE PERIOD 1939- 1942
targets. Emphasized isthe importance of includingin historical accountsof The month of September, 1939, proved to be a very important
theworksofengineeringthehumaninvolvementof the engineerswho
one inshaping myfuture life. There were three eventswhich
create them.
occurred.

INTRODUCTION 1) I arrived in Columbus, OH, from our home in Edmonton,

w HEN PROFESSOR Ed Jordan f m t approachedmeto

consider participatingintheCentennialPlenary Session
of the 1984 APS International Symposium, I declined the invita-
Alberta, Canada, in order to study for aPh.D. underProfes-
sor William L. Everitt at The Ohio State University. Two of
my friends from Edmonton,Ed Jordan and Geoffreyhliller,
had preceded me there and convinced me to choose Ohio
tion. M y reluctance was based on my disenchantment with the
State.
academic discipline known as the history oftechnology. As most 2) Canada entered the war against Germany.
historians already know,the disciplinehassome limitations,
3) My onlybrother,who was aLieutenant in theRoyal
namely,it is failing to producethe insight and wisdom one
Canadian Navy, was assigned to active duty on a destroyer
expectsfrom historical accounts [ I ] , and they are aware that
escorting ships across the North Atlantic.
this is due to uncertainty as to the proper way to include the
human involvement. For the first year or so in Columbus, life went smoothly for
One of the pioneers in the field, Jacques Ellul, is known for me until December 1940? whenI received word that my brother’s
his claim that“technologyfunctionswithouthumaninterven- destroyer had been torpedoed and he was lost at sea. With that
tion” [ 2 ] . In other words, he is saying that engineers are unim- news, I decided toreturnto Canada tocontributetothe war
portant in the development of “technology” (however you de- effort. I felt uncomfortable living at peace in the ’United States
fine it). when my friends andrelatives were involved in a war.
In my view, the human involvement of engineers in produc- Knowing that I wouldnotqualifyfor active military duty,
ing the works which engineers create is not merely peripheral, I began negotiations with some government research laboratories
but is centralto their projects.Thepoint I wanttomake is in Ottawa, which were engaged inresearchrelating to the war
that I cannot possiblyconveyan accuratepictureoftheearly effort. I informed Dr. Everitt of myintentiontoterminate
historyofthe ElectroScience LaboratoryatTheOhioState my studies.
University without explaining, in some detail, my personal Dr. Everitt suggested there might be an alternative course
history.Thetwo are intimatelyconnected. Harold Wheeler of actionwhichwouldpermitmetocontinuemy studies.He
encountered the same problem when he wrote the history of the was negotiating for a contract from the U.S. Air Force at Wright
Hazeltine Corporation, as is evident from the title ofhis book Field? Dayton, OH: to solve an urgentproblem relating to the
and its preface [3]. design of aircraft antennas. He offered to hire me on the project
As Professor Jordan pointed out to me, I am the only person andstatedthat,undera Canada-U.S. Defense agreement,any
results would be available to the Canadian government. I could
contribute to Canada‘s war effort and could also use the research
Manuscript received September 10, 1984.
The author iswith Sinclair Radio Laboratories Ltd., 122 Rayene Road, for my Ph.D. dissertation, so I accepted.
Concord, ON, Canada L4K 2G3. The project related to the problem of designing aircraft an-

0018-926X/85/0200-0137$01.00 @ 1985 IEEE