5 minute read
Radar Technology Pioneer Merrill Skolnik Dies at 94
QSL card from James Millen, W1HRX.
Internal disagreements arose with National in 1939, when the company became a publicly traded corporation, and Millen decided to leave. He went on to form The James Millen Co. and built a successful business manufacturing precision radio parts. He developed a high-end receiver at Millen, DFP-201, that was far ahead of its time, but due to costs never succeeded commercially. Although the Millen factory originally started making components, they soon began the manufacture of electronic equipment. Millen designed and built Oscilloscopes for RCA and the first commercial two-way FM radio equipment for General Electric. Millen’s company pioneered the manufacture of custom and stock magnetic shielding for cathode ray tubes, photo multipliers, and klystrons. During World War II, the company worked with GE to produce the continuoustype of delay cable, and the necessary machinery for its production. James Millen is revered today with the James Millen Society. Many awards and scholarships have been established in his name. He is an inductee of the CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame, listed as “Product engineer, National Radio, developed HRO receiver and designed its unique dial; founder, James Millen Co.”
CONTACT INFORMATION
AWA welcomes all to get involved with this tremendously exciting project. We are continuing to accept donations, and historical artifacts! For further information, please contact Bob Hobday at bobn2evg@gmail.com.
SOURCES
4–Antique Wireless Museum Phase III – Ham Shack And Registrar’s Office Donations Page, https://www. antiquewireless.org/homepage/product/4-awa-phase-iiiham-shack-and-registrars-office. Breaking Ground for the Museum Ham Shack Addition, Antique Wireless Association News, April 2022. James Millen W1HRX, http://hamgallery.com/Tribute/ W1HRX/w1hrx.pdf. Millen Memorial Station, The James Millen Society, http:// www.isquare.com/millen/bio_rem/mmstn.html. Museum Ham Shack Addition, Museum Sparks, Antique Wireless Association, Oct. 2021, Vol. 5 No. 3 and April. 2022, Vol. 6 No. 2. B. Page, N4TRB, James Millen and the National Company, http://n4trb.com/AmateurRadio/National/Millen.htm. D. F. Plant, K9LAJ/2, Designed for Application: The Story of James Millen, W1HRX, CQ Magazine, July 1967, https:// www.qsl.net/jms/bio_rem/dfacq67.html.
Merrill Skolnik, radar pioneer, passed away at age 94 on January 27. Skolnik served as superintendent of the radar division of the U.S. Naval Research
Laboratory in Washington, D.C. for more than 30 years.
While there, he made significant contributions including helping to develop high-frequency, over-the-horizon radar; a system that can identify friend or foe during combat; and high-resolution radar techniques.
For his work in the field, he was named the first recipient of the IEEE Dennis J. Picard Medal for Radar Technologies and Applications, in 2000. Picard was chief executive of
Raytheon and helped the company become a leader in tactical missile systems. Skolnik was the first recipient of the IEEE Dennis J. Picard Medal.
SKOLNIK’S CAREER
He began his career in 1955 at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory. While there, he taught a course on radar at Northeastern University, in Boston. The course was the basis for his 1962 book Introduction to Radar Systems. Merrill Skolnik began his engineering studies at Johns Hopkins late in World War II and worked in the Johns Hopkins Radiation Lab on proximity fuses and electronic warfare countermeasures. He joined MIT’s Lincoln Lab in 1955, working on radar. At the same time he taught a course on radar at Northeastern University, the basis for his 1962 book The Instruction of Radar Systems.
IEEE Life Fellow Merrill Skolnik served as superintendent of the radar division of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., for more than 30 years. (Courtesy IEEE)
He left MIT in 1959 to join Electronic Communications, Inc. (ECI), now part of Raytheon. There he gained experience working on antennas, electronic warfare, and phased arrays. He then joined the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), in Alexandria, Va. It provides technical advice to the U.S. Defense Department, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and other government entities. ECI and IDA provided him experience with communications systems for spacecraft, antennas, phase arrays, penetrating ballistic missile defenses, and countermeasures. While at IDA, he did pioneering work on thinned arrays and self-phasing array antennas. He also contributed to the fields of bistatic radars and electronic countermeasures. In 1965 he became superintendent of the radar division at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), where he stayed until his retirement in 1996. He and his staff developed concepts for wideband shipboard air-surveillance radar with reduced susceptibility to electronic countermeasures; selfdefense radar; and space-borne radar for detecting ships. Research at the NRL during Skolnik’s tenure included overthe-horizon (OTH) radar, space-based radar, Relocatable Over-the-Horizon (ROTH) radar, Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (adapting earlier periscope detection radar), Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) work, and ocean waves’ radar echo. In this interview, Skolnik explains that Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) technology originated as OTH radar for surveillance of the USSR, was adapted for strategic defense, and ultimately served as a tactical tool. In his IEEE interview (see Sources below), he describes military approaches to research and development, and compares the influence of the NRL with other service research labs. Skolnik also compares the approaches of the U.S. and the Soviet Union to radar research during the Cold War. Skolnik continued to work as a consultant for the lab after he retired in 1996.
IEEE INTERVIEW
In his IEEE Oral History Interview, he assesses the evolution of radar research, and attributes the decline of radar funding in the 1990s to the retirement of WWII and post-WWII scientists, as well as to maturation of radar technology. Skolnik hails doppler weather radar as an unsung, recent accomplishment. He also identifies international achievements in radar research. In addition to research and development, Skolnik continued his teaching and professional activities. Beginning in 1970, he taught a graduate course on radar at Johns Hopkins. Skolnik joined the AIEE, one of IEEE’s predecessor societies, in 1944 during his first year of undergraduate studies, transferring his membership to the IRE as a graduate student around 1947. He was on the Proceedings of the IEEE editorial board and edited the publication for four years in late 1980s. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees as well as a Ph.D. in engineering from Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore. He was an IEEE Life Fellow.
SOURCES
J. Goodrich, Radar Technology Pioneer Merrill Skolnik Dies at 94, IEEE Spectrum: News, The Institute, Mar. 29, 2022. Merrill Skolnik: An Interview Conducted by Michael Geselowitz, IEEE History Center, Feb. 22, 2000, Interview #389 for the IEEE History Center, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Inc. https://ethw. org/Oral-History:Merrill_Skolnik#About_Merrill_Skolnik.
