Of Grote Reber
Grote Reber was born on December 22, 1911, in a little town called Wheaton, Illinois. His mother was a school teacher and kept Grote on his best behavior (1). In 1933, Reber graduated from what is presently the Illinois Institute of Technology. He worked for several radio manufacturers in an engineering capacity from 1933-1947. In this time he did his first studies in radio astronomy.
After attending The Ohio State University in Columbus, in 1962, Reber recieved an honorary Doctor of Science degree (5). When Reber heard about Karl Jansky’s observations and the discoveries of radio waves in our Galaxy, the Milky Way, in 1932 and Grote became very interested and wanted to learn more about cosmic radio waves. This is when he started becoming very serious about what he wanted to do.
Karl Jansky worked at Bell Labs. Reber applied for jobs there, so he would be able to work with Jansky and do studies on cosmic radio waves and the Milky Way. However, there were no job openings at the time because of the Great Depression. After this Reber studied radio astronomy on his own (4).