To the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, 1931

Abstract

AbstractFrom the 1851 Exhibition Scholarship Committee to Pawsey on 1 October 1931:Pawsey started out in research in the midst of excitement over the possibilities of radio communications and the iteratively developing physical understanding of the ionosphere and of the equipment that might be used to investigate it. During 1926–28 he completed his BSc at the University of Melbourne, Victoria. In 1929 he began a Master’s Degree, which was at that time a research-only degree, under the direction of Professor T.H. Laby. He was supported by receiving the M.J. Bartlett Research Scholarship. Presumably this, along with his work as a tutor in Physics at Queens College, provided him with a small, but independent, income. He embarked on a study of “atmospherics”—electrical disturbances in the atmosphere that Appleton, at King’s College, London, and others had linked in part with thunderstorm activity—and their impact on radio broadcasting. From January 1930 to August 1931, he carried out observations using a cathode ray direction finder, working with George H. Munro and Lenard Huxley as part of the Australian Radio Research Board (RRB). Pawsey wrote in 1933: “We were able to give strong evidence that all atmospherics originate in lightning flashes, and made measurements of intensity enabling the distance of the thunderstorms to be roughly determined.” (Ratcliffe & Pawsey, 1933)