Grote Reber Biography

Grote Reber was born in 1911 to a middle class family in Wheaton, Illinois. He lived there in the suburbs of Chicago until he left for the college that he would later graduate from in 1933. He attended the Armour Institute of Technology, later to become the Illinois Institute of Technology. He got a degree in electrical engineering and later became a radio operator for a few years. In 1937 he built a radio telescope in his backyard and that is when his career in radio astronomy.
In the 1930's Grote Reber began to conduct sky surveys with his radio frequencies. In was in 1937 when his radio antenna became to be used for astronomical purposes. He was only one of the two people who had access to a radio antenna at the time and for a long time he was the only one in his field who contributed to the world of astronomy. He learned his profession from Karly Jansky who was the first to work this way at Bell labs where Grote applied to work in order to work alongside his idol. He was unfortunately turned down but that was not the end of it for when he built his own in his back yard and the telescope was far more advanced than that of Karl's. With his advanced technology he was able to see all parts of the sky and advance quickly and become a leader in his field.
Reber did have trouble in the beginning of his career because at 3300 MHz as his first receiver operated he was not able to detect anything. The same thing happened again when he tried at 900 MHz but he still tried rather than giving up on his dream. In 1938 over a year after the finishing of his telescope Reber succeeded in getting a picture of the sky at 160 MHz. Not long after he received his first publication in 1940 in the famous Astrophysical Journal but Reber kept at his own individual work rather than accept research offers from places such as Yerkes. He instead worked on  making a radiofrequency sky map which he fully completed 1941 and increased the data in 1943 to have the most complete work in the entire world. He helped jumpstart the rapid growth that occurred after WWII.
He introduced to topic that became the standard theory of radio emissions from space that was due to black-body radiation. It was later explained in the 1950's and Reber became the most prominent and well known in the world in his field. Synchrotron radiation was the explanation of the strange measurements which  explained it all and opened a whole new door in radio astronomy. Reber later sold his telescope to the National Bureau of Standards where it is now erected in Sterling, Virginia. Reber helped build other telescopes of the same kind so that the field could have expanded further and kept with his research at other MHz's that no one had ever tried before and he focused on the medium frequencies where it required him to move to Tasmania where he experienced less atmospheric problems.
He spent the rest of his life in Tasmania mostly in a very low inhabited area where he was able to study his astronomy all day. He spent thousands of hours from his modified house gazing at the sky and analyzing the radio pictures that he got from them. He worked mostly in winter when he could avoid the ionization that plagued him during much of the year. He died in his house there in 2002 doing what he loved. He was one of the most influential astronomers in his field and helped create the field of astronomy as it is today. Even though he is not known too well in his field he is highly respected by those who do know him.