Jack W. Herbstreit

Biography

Jack W. Herbstreit (A'40, SM'45) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 7, 1917. He received the E.E. degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1939. From 1939 to 1940 he was associated with the Crosley Corp. in Cincinnati, Ohio, as transmitter engineer for stations WSAI, W8XAL and 500-kw WLW.

In 1940 Mr. Herbstreit joined the Federal Communications Commission National Defense Operations in Marietta, Ga., later acting as Radio Inspector at the Atlanta Office. In 1941 he was transferred to the Federal Communications Commission Engineering Department in Washington, D. C. as radio engineer in the Safety and Special Services Division.

He joined the Operational Research Staff in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, Department of the Army, in 1942. While with this group he made numerous operational radio systems studies including measurements of atmospheric noise levels and the attenuation of radio signals by jungles in Panama and the southwest Pacific, measurements and analyses of experimental low frequency loran in the Western Hemisphere, and frequency requirements for low-power radio communications and navigation equipment.

In 1946 he joined the Central Radio Propagation Laboratory of the National Bureau of Standards conducting research on cosmic radio noise and VHF and UHF propagation. He served as technical advisor to the International High Frequency Broadcast Conference held in Mexico City in 1948 and was responsible for the preparation of radio propagation information used by the conference. He served in a similar capacity in in 1950 when the Conference convened in Florence and Rapallo, Italy. From 1949, he was in charge of the tropospheric propagation research work being conducted at the National Bureau of Standards now centered at Boulder, Colo.

Mr. Herbstreit was a member of Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, Phi Eta Sigma, AAAS, Engineering Society of Cincinnati, and was a registered professional engineer.