Robert Watson-Watt (1892–1973)
Born 1892 CE, died 1973 CE.
Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt (13 April 1892 – 5 December 1973) was a Scottish radio engineer and pioneer of radio direction finding and radar technology. Watt began his career in radio physics with a job at the Meteorological Office, where he began looking for accurate ways to track thunderstorms using the radio waves given off by lightning. This led to the 1920s development of a system later known as high-frequency direction finding (HFDF or "huff-duff"). Although well publicized, the system's enormous military potential was not developed until the late 1930s. Huff-duff allowed operators to determine the location of an enemy radio transmitter in seconds and it became a major part of the network of systems that helped defeat the threat of German U-boats during World War II. It is estimated that huff-duff was used in about a quarter of all attacks on U-boats. In 1935, Watt was asked to comment on reports of a German death ray based on radio. Watt and his assistant Arnold Frederic Wilkins quickly determined it was not possible, but Wilkins suggested using radio signals to locate aircraft at long distances.
Text from the Wikipedia article Robert_Watson-Watt, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.