[IGSMAIL-6261] Re: [IVSmail] Remembering Harry Peters

[Ya. S. Yatskiv]

Dear Tom,
Than you for sending me this sad information.
The VLBI community has lost a great expert.
Best regards  Yaroslav
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Clark, K3IO" <K3IO at verizon.net>
To: "International VLBI Service" <ivsmail at ivscc.gsfc.nasa.gov>; "IVS 
VLBI2010" <ivs-v2c at ivscc.gsfc.nasa.gov>; <SLRMail at dgfi.badw-muenchen.de>; 
<igsmail at igscb.jpl.nasa.gov>; <vlbiobs at atnf.csiro.au>; 
<vlbi at donar.cv.nrao.edu>; "Exploder for EVN Techies" <evntech at jb.man.ac.uk>; 
"John Bosworth" <John.M.Bosworth at nasa.gov>; 
<ivs-stations at ivscc.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Sent: Friday, September 17, 2010 8:58 AM
Subject: [IVSmail] Remembering Harry Peters


>I don't believe the VLBI, GPS and SLR communities have been told of the sad 
>loss of our Maser Wizard, Harry Peters.
>
>
> I first encountered Harry soon after my arrival at NASA/GSFC in 1968. 
> Harry was working for Bob Coates, developing masers for the NASA Tracking 
> Networks; I persuaded Harry and Bob that VLBI was a new tool of of radio 
> astronomy that really needed maser clocks. As a result, Harry's first 4 
> masers (NP-1 thru -4) were soon residing at telescopes in the US and 
> Sweden. The NP design was updated to the newer NR series by Harry and Vic 
> Reinhardt  just before Harry's retirement and a batch of 16 were 
> fabricated. A number of our VLBI stations still use the NRs as well as 
> Harry's newer Sigma Tau masers built by Harry's entrepreneurial Alabama 
> firm.
>
>
> VLBI owes a great debt to Harry and I am sorry to have lost a friend!
>
>
> Tom Clark
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
>
>
> The following eulogy (which fails to even mention VLBI!) is taken from 
> IEEE UFFC web site:
>
>
> Frequency_Control > In Memoria > Peters
>
>
> Harry Peters, Hydrogen Maser Expert
>
> Harry Edward Peters, 87, died May 19, 2010 at the Hospice of West Alabama. 
> Harry was an accomplished researcher, scientist, craftsman, and business 
> owner and operator. Harry spent his youth in Rochester, MN, graduating 
> from High School in 1941. He served in the United States Navy through both 
> the Second World War and Korean Conflict with the rank of Chief Petty 
> Officer before leaving the military with an honorable discharge.
>
> Harry then went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering 
> Physics from the University of Washington, graduating Magna Cum Laude and 
> entering the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.
>
> His passion was for Hydrogen Masers from the very beginning, working with 
> such notables as Dan Kleppner, Howard Berg, Stuart Crampton, Norman Ramsey 
> and others. His early product-development career was at Varian 
> Associates,(Beverly, MA) with Bob Vessot and Jacque Vanier and many others 
> at Varian. Harry moved to the National Aeronautics and Space 
> Administration (NASA) at Goddard ultimately guiding a program essential to 
> tracking and timing for manned moon missions and deep space planetary 
> probes. He continually worked on making the H-maser an ultra-stable, 
> reliable frequency standard for a variety of field applications. He 
> authored an array of papers on H-masers and received numerous awards.
>
> Retiring from NASA in 1975, Harry moved to Tuscaloosa, Al and a couple of 
> years later started Sigma Tau Standards Corporation, a research and 
> development firm dedicated to production of time and frequency standards. 
> Under his leadership, Sigma Tau perfected experimental designs for 
> extremely precise and stable clocks based on hydrogen.
>
> Several words describe working with Harry, but one described it best. He 
> was 'PROLIFIC.' He was a product of by-gone days when every mechanical 
> drawing was handmade. Every part handcrafted. And there were thousands of 
> hand drawings and crafted parts (the archive at just NIST proves it). The 
> numerous drawings leave a deep, favorable and lasting impression on anyone 
> in this field.
>
> Another word to describe Harry would be 'PERSISTENCE.' Above many other 
> attributes, Harry succeeded in bringing the exceptional stability of the 
> H-maser to commercial availability through Sigma Tau Corporation 
> essentially with his own personal investment. While it's one thing to be 
> involved in the development of a new and intricate technology, it is quite 
> another to risk a business and reputation to manufacture, deliver, and 
> support that technology. Harry persisted. His designs evolved into what 
> many regard as the first field-operational masers that were commercially 
> available to government organizations, measurement institutes, and 
> research laboratories.
>
> He made his maser as small as possible, his being in the 'full-size' 
> category (using a TE011 mode rf cavity). Key to success of the Sigma Tau 
> maser was refinement of an innovative auto tuner to minimize frequency 
> drift. Essential to national and international time measurement, Global 
> Navigation Satellite Systems like GPS, and other high technology 
> navigation systems, these clocks are recognized as the most stable ever 
> manufactured. It was so much more stable and reliable than other frequency 
> standards that its modest size became a non-issue. On that point, Harry 
> wanted his H-masers to appear smaller to the point that he photographed 
> his prototype alongside the tallest secretary he could find.
>
> Those of us who new Harry Peters are saddened by his passing. We pay 
> homage to our friend and colleague, while reveling in his enormous 
> contributions.
>
> EULOGY TO HARRY PETERS by David Howe, NIST, at the IEEE International 
> Frequency Control Symposium, 2 June 2010.
>


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


> _______________________________________________
> IVSmail mailing list
> IVSmail at ivscc.gsfc.nasa.gov
> http://ivscc.gsfc.nasa.gov/mailman/listinfo/ivsmail