Contents
| 1 | A New Window on the Universe | 1 |
| 1.1 Star Noise at the Telephone Company | 1 | |
| 1.2 Early Follow-Up to Jansky’s Discovery | 18 | |
| 1.3 Grote Reber and Cosmic Static | 19 | |
| 1.4 Impact of Karl Jansky and Grote Reber | 25 | |
| Bibliography | 31 | |
| 2 | The Postwar Explosion in Radio Astronomy: The US Falls Behind | 35 |
| 2.1 Postwar Radio Astronomy | 36 | |
| 2.2 Radio Waves from the Sun | 42 | |
| 2.3 Radio Stars and Radio Galaxies | 43 | |
| 2.4 The 21 cm Hydrogen Line: The Beginning of Radio Spectroscopy | 48 | |
| 2.5 Early US University Radio Astronomy Programs | 53 | |
| 2.6 US Government and Military Radio Astronomy Programs | 58 | |
| 2.7 Private Initiatives | 63 | |
| 2.8 Why Did the US Fall Behind the UK and Australia? Or Did It? | 65 | |
| Bibliography | 70 | |
| 3 | A New Era in Radio Astronomy | 77 |
| 3.1 The Business of Science | 77 | |
| 3.2 First Steps Toward a National Radio Astronomy Facility | 86 | |
| 3.3 Creating the National Observatory | 108 | |
| 3.4 Choosing the Site | 123 | |
| 3.5 Confrontation and Decision | 130 | |
| Bibliography | 154 |
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