Daily Image
30-04-2010
A. H. de Voogt (r.) and J. H. Oort (from 1957 film by H. Kleibrink)
| Submitter: | Richard Strom |
| Description: | Anthonet Hugo de Voogt, born 1 May 1892 in Amsterdam, was an avid ham in his teens. Amateur radio before 1910 was not for the faint hearted, but it quickly caught on (despite being illegal), and A.H. de Voogt was in the vanguard of the movement. Having obtained his electrical engineering degree (from Delft, 1916), De Voogt joined the Dutch PTT (Post Office) as an engineer, and moved steadily through the ranks to become head of the telephone district for Breda in 1939. A few weeks after the war in Europe ended, he was promoted to head the PTT’s Radio Service. From this position in the upper echelons of the Post Office hierarchy, De Voogt’s earlier passion seems to have been rekindled, and he launched a number of initiatives to pursue radio astronomical research. The logic behind his action was that solar activity affects the ionosphere, which in its turn influences long distance radio communication. It was De Voogt who apprised Jan Oort of the possible use of an abandoned Würzburg Riese radar antenna in his search for the 21 cm HI line; it was also he who enabled Oort’s nascent research group to borrow one from the PTT station in Kootwijk. One sees De Voogt’s experience with early radio coming through in his initiative to protect the 21 cm hydrogen band from interference. In the end, the hydrogen observations proved far more significant than the solar work, and De Voogt’s role can be seen as mainly a facilitator of research. Ironically, it was not the solar research, with its potential application to improve radio communication, which proved successful, but rather the hydrogen work which was relevant only to pure science. (This is one of several portraits of key figures in early Dutch radio astronomy. For some of the background, look here ) |
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