Fall 2004 Issue

DR. SETI’s STARSHIP

Remembering John Kraus, W8JK

I am saddened to report the death on 18 July 2004, just three weeks after his 94th birthday, of Dr. John D. Kraus, W8JK, a true renaissance man. John was Professor Emeritus at Ohio State University, where he had taught engineering, physics, and radio astronomy for nearly half a century. Long after his retirement, he was still going to the campus daily to meet with students. Ever the optimist, John had renewed his ham radio license a few days before his death—for a period of ten years.

Prof. Kraus distinguished himself as a prominent physicist, educator, antenna designer, engineer, writer, publisher, radio amateur, and philosopher. His textbooks Radio Astronomy, Antennas, Electromagnetics, and Our Cosmic Universe guided a whole generation of astronomers and engineers, including me. His two volumes of memoirs (Big Ear and Big Ear Too) inspired a whole generation of radio amateurs (again, including me). His short-lived periodical, Cosmic Search, was the world’s first SETI magazine, its thirteen issues still cherished by those of us involved in the SETI enterprise. His designs (including the legendary Big Ear radio telescope) have expanded humanity’s knowledge of the cosmos.

It was at Big Ear that the most tantalizing, elusive, and enigmatic evidence yet of extraterrestrial intelligence was collected. The legendary “Wow!” signal received there on 15 August 1977 remained the greatest mystery of John Kraus’s life, a detection that fit exactly the expected profile of intercepted radiation from another intelligent civilization in the cosmos.
 

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Dr. John D. Kraus, W8JK, Ohio’s first and foremost radio astronomer, designed and built Big Ear, the third largest radio telescope in the United States. His basic design has been duplicated at least three times around the world and is now known generically as the Kraus-type telescope. W8JK was prominent in ham circles for inventing several other important antennas, including the 8JK beam (a two-element, wire, end-fire array), the axial-mode helix, and the corner reflector. He is seen here at the site where Big Ear stood for nearly 40 years, giving its eulogy at the dedication of a state historical marker. (N6TX photo)