Dr. James Breakall, WA3FET, Receives Major Award from the RCA

Congratulations to long-time HamSCI member Jim Breakall, WA3FET, on receiving the Dr. Ulrich Rohde Award for Innovation in Applied Radio Science and Engineering from the Radio Club of America (RCA).

Established in 2023, this award recognizes significant contributions to innovation in applied radio science and engineering in the wireless industry to inspire future generations of wireless professionals.

'Dr. Jim' received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. He has over 50 years of experience in numerical electromagnetics and antennas. He was a Project Engineer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL-Livermore, CA), and an Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPGS-Monterey, CA). He is currently a Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Penn State.

He began his career as a graduate student at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, working on antenna analysis and radar probing of the ionosphere. At LLNL, he and his group worked on the development of the Numerical Electromagnetics Code (NEC), the first sophisticated antenna modeling program. Other significant projects that he has worked on were the designs of the HAARP facility in Alaska, both HF facilities at Arecibo, and the Kinstar low profile AM broadcast antenna. Dr. Breakall (electrical) and HamSCI member/supporter Tim Duffy, K3LR, (mechanical) designed the very popular Ham Radio Skyhawk Yagi antenna, and Dr. Breakall is the inventor of the Optimized Wideband Antenna (OWA).

Dr. Breakall is a member of several IEEE societies, Eta Kappa Nu, International Union of Radio Science Commission B, and the IEEE Wave Propagation and Standards Committee. He has been an editor for several journals. He is a frequent speaker at the Dayton Hamvention Antenna Forum.

He received the RCA Sarnoff Citation and is a Life Fellow of IEEE and a RCA Fellow. He serves as an RCA director and as the Co-Chairman and later Chairman of the RCA Technical Symposiums. He also serves on the RCA Scholarship Committee, Education Committee and Awards Committee, and Innovation Council.

- Thanks to the RCA website for the above details