Materials are arranged in the order created during the interview process with the first file containing administrative materials created before, during, and after the interview.
Accession No. PA.2002.0026: Robert A. Helliwell, 2002 September
[identification of item], Robert A. Helliwell Oral History, SPEC.PA.56.0128, Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center Archival Program, Ohio State University
Contains audiocassettes.
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Processed by: Audrey Wimbiscus, 2023 November; Finding aid written by: David Mezick, 2023 December
Robert (Bob) Arthur Helliwell (1920-2011) was an electrical engineer who studied radio waves and how they interact with charged particles in the upper atmosphere. He was born in Red Wing, Minnesota. Helliwell enrolled at Stanford University in 1938 and went on to earn his undergraduate and graduate degrees in electrical engineering. He joined the electrical engineering faculty at Stanford in 1946, and a finished his doctoral degree in 1948. Helliwell’s research mainly focused on whistlers, which are very low frequency (VLF) radio waves naturally emitted by lightning that make a descending whistling tone when amplified. Helliwell’s interest in whistlers led him to study the properties of VLF radio waves and their interaction with charged particles in the ionosphere and magnetosphere. Throughout his career, he helped to establish and/or coordinated with stations across the globe that were involved in this research.
In 1956, Helliwell was invited to study whistlers in Antarctica as a part of the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958). He travelled to Antarctica several times in the following decades and was involved with the development of research equipment used there. In particular, Helliwell and his team conducted experiments at Siple Station in Antarctica from 1973 to 1988. Siple Station had a VLF radio wave transmitter with an antenna that was many miles long (originally, it was 13 miles long, and eventually, there were two antennas that were each 25 miles long). Helliwell retired in 1990, becoming professor emeritus of electrical engineering at Stanford.
Helliwell received the Antarctic Service Medal in 1966 and the Appleton Prize from the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) for outstanding contributions to ionospheric research in 1972. He was a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Helliwell Hills, located in Antarctica, were named for Robert A. Helliwell.
The Robert A. Helliwell Oral History, dated 2002-2003, contains audio recordings and administrative information for the interview between Helliwell and Brian Shoemaker of the American Polar Society conducted on September 17, 2002. This interview was a part of a series of polar oral histories sponsored by American Polar Society and Ohio State University's Byrd Polar Research Center Archival Program, with funding from the National Science Foundation. Major topics discussed include Helliwell’s early life, his study of radio wave propagation in the ionosphere at Stanford University and the equipment used, the study of whistlers and how he became interested in this research after graduate student Jack Mallinckrodt observed the phenomenon and brought it to his attention, his involvement with experiments related to whistlers in Antarctica, including at Siple Station, the equipment used for these experiments in Antarctica, and experiments related to whistlers conducted in Alaska and the methods he used to analyze the data gathered there.