Joe Taylor
| Joe Taylor | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr. |
| Born | March 29, 1941, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Occupation | Astrophysicist; professor at Princeton University, retired 2006 |
| Known for | Discovery of the first binary pulsar; the WSJT weak-signal software |
| Amateur radio | |
| Call sign | K1JT |
| First licensed | 1954, as KN2ITP |
| Software | WSJT (2001), WSJT-X, MAP65, QMAP |
| Modes in his software | JT65, WSPR, FT8, FT4, Q65 and others |
| Honors | |
| Nobel Prize | Physics, 1993, shared with Russell Hulse |
Joe Taylor (born 1941), call sign K1JT, is an American astrophysicist who shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics and who is also one of the most influential software authors in amateur radio. His WSJT programs, and the modes developed in them such as FT8, let hams make contacts with signals far too weak to hear, and they changed how the hobby uses moonbounce, meteor scatter and the HF bands.
Early radio and astronomy
Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr. was born in Philadelphia on March 29, 1941,[1] and went to high school at Moorestown Friends School in New Jersey.[2] According to Princeton University, his interest in radio equipment began with his brother, Hal.[2] He was first licensed in 1954 as KN2ITP, a Novice call of the time, and has since held K2ITP, WA1LXQ, W1HFV, VK2BJX (in Australia) and K1JT.[3]
Taylor earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Haverford College in 1963 and a doctorate in astronomy from Harvard in 1968.[4] Radio astronomy, a field built on the same receiving and antenna skills that hams use, became his career.
Pulsars and the Nobel Prize
In 1969 Taylor joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 1974, working at the giant Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico with Russell Hulse, then his graduate student, he discovered the pulsar PSR 1913+16.[4] Its pulses changed in a regular eight-hour pattern, showing that it was orbiting another neutron star: it was the first binary pulsar ever found.[4]
Years of careful timing showed the two stars slowly spiraling closer together at a rate that closely matched the one predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity if the system was losing energy as gravitational waves. This was the first experimental, though indirect, evidence that gravitational waves exist.[4] Taylor and Hulse shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering this new type of pulsar and for opening new ways to study gravity.[1]
Taylor moved to Princeton University in 1980, was named James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics in 1986, and served as Dean of the Faculty from 1997 to 2003.[2] He retired in 2006.[4]
WSJT software
Taylor's first WSJT program ("Weak Signal communication, by K1JT") appeared in 2001.[5] It used computer processing to dig signals out of noise, and Princeton credits it with bringing moonbounce within reach of hams with much smaller antennas than had been needed before.[2] Its JT65 mode became a standard for moonbounce, and later modes followed for other jobs: WSPR for low-power beacons that map propagation, MSK144 for meteor scatter, and Q65 for difficult VHF and UHF paths.[5]
In 2017 Taylor and Steve Franke, K9AN, released FT8 in WSJT-X, the extended successor program.[6] It quickly became the most popular mode on HF. Taylor continues to lead the free, open-source WSJT-X project with a small international team; WSJT-X 3.0 came out in April 2026, followed by 3.0.2 in June 2026.[7] The team also publishes MAP65 and QMAP, wideband receiving programs for moonbounce.[7]
Taylor also writes about his work for other hams. He and Bruce Walker, W1BW, shared the ARRL's Doug DeMaw, W1FB, Technical Excellence Award for 2010 for their QST article "WSPRing Around the World."[8]
Moonbounce at Arecibo
In April 2010 Taylor returned to Arecibo as one of the operators of KP4AO, the Arecibo Observatory Radio Club, which used the observatory's 1,000-foot dish for a weekend of moonbounce on the 70-centimeter band.[9] Power ranged from about 35 watts on the first day to several hundred watts later.[3] Hams were asked to make only one contact each so that as many as possible could work the dish. In about eight hours of operation, the station completed 242 contacts with stations in 36 DXCC entities, some using only a small handheld Yagi or even a dipole.[3] Most contacts were on CW and SSB. One hour was set aside for JT65, which accounted for 14 of the total.[3]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Joseph H. Taylor Jr.: Facts, Nobel Prize.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Joseph Hooton Taylor, Office of the Dean of the Faculty, Princeton University.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Moonbounce from Arecibo Observatory, Joe Taylor, K1JT, Angel Vazquez, WP3R, and Jim Breakall, WA3FET.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Joseph H. Taylor, Jr., Encyclopaedia Britannica.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 WSJT-X User Guide, version 2.6.1, Joseph H. Taylor, Jr., K1JT.
- ↑ FT8 Mode is Latest Bright Shiny Object in Amateur Radio Digital World, ARRL, August 2017.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 WSJT-X: Official Home, WSJT Development Team.
- ↑ 2010 ARRL Technical Excellence Award Winners Announced, ARRL.
- ↑ Moonbounce for Everyone: Courtesy of the Arecibo Radio Telescope!, ARRL, April 2010.
External links
- WSJT-X home page
- Joseph H. Taylor Jr.: facts, Nobel Prize