Broadcast Electric Field Radio Station Strength

Karl Jansky

Karl Jansky was born in Oklahoma in 1905 but moved to Wisconsin three years later. After being raised in Wisconsin and graduating with a degree in physics from the University of Wisconsin, Jansky started working for Bell labs (forerunner to AT&T) in 1928. Because he had chronic kidney disease Bell labs almost didn't hire Jansky. However an older brother who had previously worked at Bell labs intervened for him.

Jansky's Work at Bell Labs

Bell labs was primarily interested in telephone communications. In Jansky's time short-wave radio transmissions were used for long distance and transatlantic telephone communications. Consequently the noise or static in these radio frequencies reduced the quality of these early telephone communications.

Therefore Jansky's job assignment at Bell labs was to study this short-wave (20.5 MHz) radio static and if possible design receivers to minimize the noise. This was a purely applied problem, but Jansky made a fundamental discovery, celestial radio waves, that revolutionized astronomy.

For the first two years, Jansky worked at the Cliffwood, New Jersey laboratory, but he moved to the Holmdel, New Jersey laboratory in 1930.

First Jansky needed a short-wave radio antenna and receiver. This equipment is relatively common today, but in Jansky's time radio was relatively new and the techniques for building radio receivers were less established. Hence it took Jansky a couple years to build and modify the equipment for his work.

To study the direction of the radio waves, Jansky's antenna was mounted on wheels from a model T car and rotated like a merry-go-round.

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