Grote Reber, one of the earliest pioneers of radio
astronomy, died in Tasmania on December 20, just two
days shy of his 91st birthday.

Reber was the first person to build a radio telescope
dedicated to astronomy, opening up a whole new
“window” on the Universe that eventually produced
such landmark discoveries as quasars, pulsars and
the remnant “afterglow” of the Big Bang. His self-
financed experiments laid the foundation for today’s
advanced radio-astronomy facilities.

“Radio astronomy has changed profoundly our
understanding of the Universe and has earned the
Nobel Prize for several major contributions. All
radio astronomers who have followed him owe Grote
Reber a deep debt for his pioneering work,” said
Dr. Fred Lo, director of the National Radio Astronomy
Observatory (NRAO).

“Reber was the first to systematically study the sky
by observing something other than visible light. This
gave astronomy a whole new view of the Universe. The
continuing importance of new ways of looking at the
Universe is emphasized by this year’s Nobel Prizes in
physics, which recognized scientists who pioneered X-ray
and neutrino observations,” Lo added.

Reber was a radio engineer and avid amateur “ham”
radio operator in Wheaton, Illinois, in the 1930s
when he read about Karl Jansky’s 1932 discovery of
natural radio emissions coming from outer space.
As an amateur operator, Reber had won awards and
communicated with other amateurs around the world,
and later wrote that he had concluded “there were
no more worlds to conquer” in radio.

Learning of Jansky’s discovery gave Reber a whole
new challenge that he attacked with vigor. Analyzing
the problem as an engineer, Reber concluded that what
he needed was a parabolic-dish antenna, something quite
uncommon in the 1930s. In 1937, using his own funds,
he constructed a 31.4-foot-diameter dish antenna in his
back yard. The strange contraption attracted curious
attention from his neighbors and became something of
a minor tourist attraction, he later recalled.

Using electronics he designed and built that pushed the
technical capabilities of the era, Reber succeeded in
detecting “cosmic static” in 1939.

In 1941, Reber produced the first radio map of the sky,
based on a series of systematic observations. His
radio-astronomy work continued over the next several
years. Though not a professional scientist, his research
results were published in a number of prestigious technical
journals, including Nature, the Astrophysical
Journal, the Proceedings of the Institute of Radio
Engineers and the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Reber also received a number of honors normally reserved for
scientists professionally trained in astronomy, including
the American Astronomical Society’s Henry Norris Russell
Lectureship and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s
Bruce Medal in 1962, the National Radio Astronomy
Observatory’s Jansky Lectureship in 1975, and the Royal
Astronomical Society’s Jackson-Gwilt Medal in 1983.

Reber’s original dish antenna now is on display at the
National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s site in Green
Bank, West Virginia, where Reber worked in the late
1950s. All of his scientific papers and records as well
as his personal and scientific correspondence are
held by the NRAO, and will be exhibited in the observatory’s
planned new library in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Reber’s amateur-radio callsign, W9GFZ, is held by the NRAO
Amateur Radio Club. This callsign was used on the air for
the first time since the 1930s on August 25, 2000, to mark
the dedication of the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope.

The
National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the
National Science Foundation, operated
under cooperative agreement by
Associated Universities, Inc.