Alexander Alexandrovich Pistolkors (September 28, 1896, Moscow — March 23, 1996) was a Russian and Soviet military engineer, radio engineer, and scientist in the field of antenna engineering. He was a professor (from 1937), a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (from 1946), a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (from 1991), a winner of the Lenin Prize, and an Honored Inventor of the RSFSR. He is connected with the Nizhny Novgorod scientific community through his work at the Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory in 1926–1928.[2]
Military Service and the Beginning of Scientific Work
In 1917 he graduated from the Nikolaevsky Engineering School. He became acquainted with radio engineering during the First World War at the Officers' Electrotechnical School in Petrograd, after which he served as a radio station commander on the Caucasian Front. During the Civil War, from August 1918, he spent more than six months working as a radio operator at an underground radiotelegraph station in Baku, which was then under the control of the interventionist troops, maintaining communication with the Soviet government; for this activity he was awarded an engraved watch. In 1923–1927 he studied at the Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School (MVTU), graduating in 1927.[2]
The Nizhny Novgorod Period
In 1926–1928 Pistolkors worked at the Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory, where he became a student of Mikhail Alexandrovich Bonch-Bruevich. The Radio Laboratory was at that time the leading center of Russian radio engineering, and his Nizhny Novgorod experience largely determined Pistolkors's later scientific specialization.[2][1]
Scientific and Teaching Career
From 1929 Pistolkors worked at the Central Radio Laboratory and then at a number of other research institutes in Leningrad. At the same time he taught at Leningrad higher educational institutions, heading the Department of Radio Engineering at the Leningrad Institute of Communications Engineers. In 1940, after the death of Bonch-Bruevich, he spoke at a meeting of the institute's academic council with a proposal to petition the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) to establish scholarships in his name; as a result of this petition, a decree of the Sovnarkom named the institute after Professor M. A. Bonch-Bruevich. In 1943 he was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor.[2]
From 1945 Pistolkors concentrated on work at research institutes. He proposed and developed a number of fundamental methods of antenna theory: the induced EMF method for calculating the radiation resistance of short-wave antennas, the duality principle, and a method for calculating antennas from a given radiation pattern. He developed several new types of antennas. Besides antenna engineering, he proposed a method of phase telegraphy.[2]
Recognition
On December 4, 1946, he was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the Department of Technical Sciences (radio engineering). In 1956 he was awarded the A. S. Popov Gold Medal. In 1961 he became a winner of the Lenin Prize. In 1972 he received the title of Honored Inventor of the RSFSR. In 1991 he was confirmed as a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He died on March 23, 1996, and was buried at the Khovanskoye Cemetery in Moscow.[2]
Sources
- nnov.ngounb.ru — At the Origins of Radio Broadcasting — Local History Internet Portal "Nizhny Novgorod Region: Pages of History"
- viupetra2.3dn.ru — Pistolkors A. A. — Graduates — School — Article Catalog — Military Engineering Schools, 1701–1960 (archive)