W2VXD Roy E. Anderson Scotia NY SK

Roy E. Anderson, 93, passed away peacefully in his home in Glenville on December 7, 2011, surrounded by his loving family.
Born in Batavia, Ill., he graduated from Augustana College in 1943 and was a physics instructor there until entering the Navy in 1944. While in the Navy, he received radar training at Bowdoin College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and served as electronics officer on the USS Shelikof.
Mr. Anderson had returned to teaching at his alma mater when he was encouraged by a visiting lecturer to apply for a job at General Electric. In his early career at GE, he focused on electronic measurement and quality control instruments.
In 1957, he and a few colleagues used one of his inventions, a Doppler Direction Finder, to track the Russian satellite Sputnik from a camping tent in a farmers field. This exploit marked the company's entry into space-related activities, and set the direction for the rest of Mr. Anderson's career. Between then and his retirement in 1983, he originated concepts for navigation and location-finding using Earth satellites, some of which were precursors for today's global positioning systems.
At the time of his retirement, he was principal investigator at the GE Earth Station Laboratory in Schenectady. Mr. Anderson co-founded Mobile Satellite Corporation in Malvern, Pa. This company filed the first application with the Federal Aviation Administration for a license to create a commercial system for satellite-based mobile communications. In 1988 Mobilsat joined with 12 other companies to form the American Mobile Satellite Corporation, to which Mr. Anderson served as a consultant until 1991.
Mr. Anderson contributed more than 125 papers to professional journals and held 22 patents. He received a Ralph J. Cordiner Award and a Coolidge Fellowship from GE. He was a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; the Institute of Navigation; the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and the Radio Club of America. He served a term as board president and was a trustee emeritus of Dudley Observatory. He served on several national committees concerned with navigation and communication. Still vigorous and engaged in his 92nd year, he recently published an analysis of fossil fuel supplies, current usage, and the implications, entitled "When Oil and Gas Are Depleted," (energybulletin.net/stories/2011-8-01/whenoilandgasaredepleted).
Mr. Anderson's boyhood passion for ham radio grew into his lifelong involvement in communications. He loved working with wood, and made furniture pieces for all of his children's and grandchildren's homes, as well as abstract sculptures. He was an enthusiastic photographic documentarian of his global travels with his wife, Gladys, and of his children.
He is survived by his beloved wife Gladys (nee Nelson); his children, Paul (wife Margie), David (wife Marguerite), Barbara Wald (husband Robert), and Dorothy Presser (husband Alan); grandchildren, Christopher, Rachel Mahrt, Sarah and Kristina Wald, Steven and Adam Presser, and great-grandchildren, Soren and Sigrid. He donated his remains to the Anatomical Program of Albany Medical College. His ashes will be placed in the Gerald B. H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery in Schuylerville. A celebration of remembrances will be announced at a later date. Memorial contributions may be made to a . To leave a message for the family online visit www.glenvillefuneralhome.com

Published in Albany Times Union from December 11 to December 12, 2011

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/timesunion-albany/obituary.aspx?n=roy-e-anderson&pid=154968514

73 K2HAT Lee Hatfield