Frank Wilsenham Hyde
Frank Wilsenham Hyde (1909-1984)
2018 'Frank Wilsenham Hyde was a popular character in the BAA (British Astronomical Association) from 1957 to 1966, receiving the Association's Merlin Medal in 1963 and serving briefly as the Editor of the BAA Journal from 1963 November to 1965 December. His extraordinary Radio Astronomy Observatory was the most advanced amateur facility in the UK during the 1960s, and the media even described it as 'a miniature Jodrell Bank'. However, increasing financial problems led to his dramatic exit from the Association and the dismantling of his observatory in 1967.'[1]
'Frank Wilsenham Hyde was born in Rochford, near Southend-on-Sea, on 1909 March 10. As a young man he became interested in electronics and in his twenties he began to dabble with radio astronomy from his back garden, even before the start of World War II. After the war ended, in 1945, Hyde’s interest in the subject resumed. At that time he worked for the electronics company Crompton Parkinson at their Writtle Road site in Chelmsford. In the first ten or so years after World War II Hyde carried out radio astronomy from the back garden of his Clacton home at 27 Carlton Road...'[2]