John D. Kraus
1910 – 2004
Radio astronomer and antenna author; W8JK.
An American radio astronomer and antenna engineer, Kraus invented the helical antenna, built one of the first large radio telescopes, and wrote the textbook 'Antennas' that trained generations. His callsign, W8JK, is itself a famous antenna design.
The antenna-gain and beamwidth tools here use his approximations. He taught the field to reason about antennas physically, not just mathematically.
Portrait: a stylized blueprint-line rendering, not a photograph.
Contributions in the toolbox
- 1946
Helical antenna; the practical-antenna era.
→ Gain from Beamwidths - 1950
*Antennas* — the beamwidth-gain approximation canonized.
→ Gain from Beamwidths