Janusz Groszkowski – the founding father of Polish RF engineering

Janusz Groszkowski was born on 21 March 1898 in Warsaw. He was strongly connected with his home town for most of his eventful life and fruitful career. When young Janusz graduated from his secondary school, the beginning of World War I shattered the world. However, Warsaw was saved from the war damage. Thanks to that, the talented teenager could continue his education and become one of the first students of the Technical University of Warsaw in 1915. His first choice was the mechanical faculty. Then, he studied electrical engineering and specialised in radio-frequency engineering.

The beginning of career and the first inventions

History prevented Janusz Groszkowski from unfolding his career smoothly. In 1919, Soviet Russia invaded newly-independent Poland, and Groszkowski became the deputy commander of the Radiotelegraph Battalion. Among other things, his duty was to teach the telecommunication technicians. On the one hand, it hampered his research works, but on the other hand, he gained access to state-of-the-art technologies. He also graduated from the Officer Communications School in Paris. The total defeat of Russia made the academia open for Janusz Groszkowski again. He managed to publish his first scientific papers on cathode lamps and vacuum engineering and became a professor at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s. Around that time, he also constructed a head for taking measurements in high vacuum environments. In the 1930s, he successfully researched the stabilisation and analysis of oscillations. As a result of that work, he created an analysis method named after him, “Groszkowski's method of the harmonics”, and described what is now referred to as “Groszkowski’s effect”. His significant achievement was the development of a magnetron with an oxide cathode. This invention later appeared crucial to the course of WW II. Moreover, Groszkowski, together with Stefan Manczarski, worked on launching television, but 1939 and the war interrupted their efforts.

World War II and the research on V2

After the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Janusz Groszkowski and other scientists of the National Telecommunications Institute were evacuated to the east, to Lviv. He continued his research work there and in 1941 returned to Nazi-occupied Warsaw, where he was a lecturer at the State Technical College (formerly the Technical University of Warsaw). However, this does not mean that he began collaborating with the invaders; quite the contrary. He was actively involved in the Home Army (AK, Polish underground armed forces) and served as a telecommunications advisor. He contributed to deciphering captured V2 missile components, and his aim was to disrupt the missiles’ flight routes. As we present Groszkowski's contribution to the Allies, let us recall the magnetron mentioned earlier, which was used to construct the radars used during the Battle of Britain.

Semiconductors and television

After WW II, Groszkowski continued to pursue his scientific career. He undertook research into semiconductor technologies and published more than 360 papers, including five books. He successfully patented the germanium blade transistor and developed its manufacturing technology. He also resumed work on the television broadcasting technology, successfully culminating in 1952.

After retiring, he became involved in politics. In the 1970s, he was even a member of the PRL's Parliament. Still, the changing state policy and increasing dependence on the Soviet Union made him quit all the state and political positions. He returned to public issues in the 1980s, when he became a counsellor to the National Committee of NSZZ Solidarność. He was awarded many decorations for his services, both civilian (Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta) and military (Gold Cross of the Virtuti Militari Order). He was a member of the Academy of Sciences of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the USSR and Romania, and an honorary member of many societies. He was also short-listed for the Nobel Prize.

Let us stay in touch!

This is reassuring: Professor Groszkowski’s biography is inextricably linked to the difficult and violent history of the 20th century, yet the main thread in his academic work was, after all... communication.

The last century has brought many technological changes in this field. Still, radio hobbyists are just as active in the Internet age as they were in the days when radio waves, reflected from the higher layers of the atmosphere, were the simplest method of worldwide communication. Moreover, the interest in data transmission, even if in a different form, continues to stir the imagination of young engineers. Transistors and resonators are tiny microscopic components today, and there is no longer a need to build our own radio transmitters. However, science still challenges us. Nowadays, young electric engineers often use RF communication modules. In fact, RF technology is more widespread than ever if you include modern technologies, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and, of course, GSM/LTE. Global localisation systems, such as Global Navigation Satellite Systems, GPS and Galileo, also stem from the dream of endless possibilities of electromagnetic waves. All these are the dreams that Prof. Groszkowski made come true in the form of research and inventions.

Notably, even radio amateurs have reached out “to the space”. While Janusz Groszkowski was still among us, in 1961, non-governmental satellite OSCAR 1 was launched into orbit around the Earth. Today, its name is commemorated by geostationary transponder OSCAR 100 (Es'hail 2), which transmits messages between thousands of RF enthusiasts from Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South America. It has become the inspiration and motivation for countless electronic projects. We can only rejoice at the fact that most of the dialogues held via the QO-100 satellite are those between countries that used to be at war in the days of Prof. Groszkowski.