13 May
2022
13 May
'22
12:50 p.m.
Last night I got the sad news that Franklin Antonio, N6NKF, one of the founders of Qualcomm and my boss for most of my 20 years there, has passed away.
In recent years he'd turned to philanthropy, giving $30M to the University of California San Diego (UCSD) for a building named after him. The dedication was just two days ago, and he didn't show up.
He'd also donated $3M to the Allen Telescope Array for a new broadband antenna feed, but more importantly he had provided them with a lot of engineering management and guidance that will be impossible to replace.
AMSAT members probably know him best as the author of the Instant Track orbital tracking software that AMSAT sold for many years.
Phil