Franz Kiebitz

Franz Kiebitz (born June 20, 1878 in Bautzen , † June 30, 1962 ) was a German high-frequency technician .

Life

The son of secondary school professor Gustav Kiebitz (1838–1898) was admitted to secondary school in 1887, after three years of preparatory school, and from 1893–1896 attended the upper secondary school of the royal secondary school in Zittau . In Leipzig he studied mathematics, physics and chemistry. Michaelis in 1889 he became an assistant to Paul Drude , whom he followed to Giessen at Easter 1900 . Here he was in the next year with his thesis on "Electrical oscillations of a rod-shaped conductor" doctorate .

He first worked at the Physikalischer Verein in Frankfurt am Main and in 1905 became Drude's assistant at the Physics Institute at the University of Berlin. After Drude's death in the summer of 1906, Kiebitz entered the service of the Reich Post Office as the successor to Seibis and took over the position of a telegraph engineer for radio technology in the Telegraph Research Office . He replaced the “hobbyist” prevailing in wireless telegraphy with precise scientific working and measuring methods. In 1907 he completed his habilitation at the University of Berlin with a thesis on "Interference experiments with free Hertzian waves". He investigated the directional effect of terrestrial antennas, thereby doing the preparatory work for today's long-wire antennas. Around 1912 there was a priority dispute with Ludwig Zehnder .

During the First World War, as a captain on the staff of the chief of field telegraphy, he was head of the radio telegraphic reconnaissance service on the entire eastern front with the Commander-in-Chief of the East. Then he developed a radio telegraphic course guide based on the AN-Leitstrahlverfahren (initially without knowledge of Otto Scheller's patents ) and a secret telegraphing process based on the same principle at the technical department for radio equipment (Tafunk) .

When the technical departments of the Reichspost were combined in the Telegraphisches Reichsamt (TRA) in 1921, Kiebitz took over the management of the test department, where Heinrich Pauli was one of his employees. When the Telegraphische Reichsamt was merged into the Reichspostzentralamt (RPZ) in 1927, Kiebitz became the conductor of the radio department (VI).

In August 1928 he was with Friedrich Weichart on a radio exercise of the Reichswehr near Dillingen (Danube), Nördlingen, Dinkelsbühl, Aalen and Crailsheim. Shortly before Christmas 1929, he conducted antenna experiments with Albrecht Gothe (* 1892) in Mellen- Saalow in order to research the usefulness of half-wave antennas.

Publications

• About the electrical vibrations of a rod-shaped conductor. Dissertation . Giessen 1901. (with curriculum vitae).
• Via a short glycerine barometer. 1903.
• Some experiments on rapid continuous oscillations. 1909.
• Oscillation circles. The complete solution of the differential equations of two magnetically coupled, constantly damped electrical oscillating circuits. In: Annals of Physics. 40/1910, pp. 138-156.
• New attempts with transmitting antennas.
• Attempts to tune directional antennas for short waves.
• A new method for measuring degrees of coupling and induction quantities. 1914.
• About the history of the terrestrial antennas. 1912.
• About propagation processes and reception interference in spark telegraphy. 1923.
• Wireless telegraphy and telephony. 1924.
• To study the propagation of electrical waves. In: Polytechnisches Journal . 343, 1928, pp. 53-58.
• The electric waves. 1929.
• The Telegraph Testing Office and its transfer to the Telegraph Technical Reich Office. 1929.
• Nikola Tesla as the pioneer of wireless telegraphy. 1937.

literature

• Obituary in electrical engineering journal. Volume 14, 1962, p. 547.