Obituaries

The following list comprises those members whose demise has been notified via the STL QCC listserver.

From The Times: March 9, 2009
Charles Sandbank: electronics engineer


Charles Sandbank had a telling influence on the way we listen and watch radio, television and cinema. He was a world leader in the research and development of electronics, telecommunications and digital broadcasting.

Charles Peter Sandbank was born in Vienna in 1939. His family moved to England where he attended Bromley Grammar School in Kent. After graduating in physics at London University and specialising in electronic engineering for a postgraduate diploma at Imperial College, he began work as a production engineer. Soon his career began to turn to the future of electronic engineering; first, in 1955-60, as a development engineer with the Brimar Valve Company.
In 1960 he moved to the STC company’s transistor division where he developed some of the first semiconductor integrated circuits to be produced in Europe. Four years later he became head of the Electron Devices Laboratory at Standard Telecommunications Laboratories and, in 1968, became manager of the STL Communications Systems Division. He was responsible for the team that pioneered the use of optical fibres for communications and, in 1976, built the world’s first wideband digital optical fibre communication system.

Sandbank’s reputation for high-level original thinking helped to land him the post of Head of Research and Development with BBC Engineering in 1978. Colleagues recall how he proved a breath of fresh air. “Call me Charlie,” he insisted when referred to as “sir”. He exploited Nicam stereo sound for television, which became the world’s first digital broadcasting system, and realised the potential of high-definition television. He became the first chair of the European Broadcasting Union’s high definition TV committee that looked into the possibilities of achieving worldwide standards.
By 1984 Sandbank had become BBC deputy director of engineering. His gregarious personality and enthusiasm for projects was vital for persuading politicians and organisations to invest in new technologies, and he developed the digital audio broadcast system, DAB.
After leaving the BBC in 1993 Sandbank became a consultant for what was then the Department of Trade and Industry, advising on radio frequency bands and their standardisation. He also became, in 2001, a founding co-chairman of the European Digital Cinema Forum, lobbying government-backed bodies, including the UK Film Council, to invest in electronic digital projectors for cinemas.
Between 1982 and 1989 he was the Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in the Principles of Information Systems Design at the University of Bradford. In 2004 Bradford awarded him an honorary doctorate of engineering.

Sandbank’s engaging personality made him a much sought-after public speaker, and his web of contacts was such that his golden anniversary celebrations in 2005 required four parties.
He is survived by his wife, Audrey, two daughters and a son.
Charles Sandbank, electronics engineer, was born on August 14, 1931. He died after a brain haemorrhage on December 15, 2008, aged 77

Return to top of page

John Stagg

In the early eighties John was recruited by STC Technology to strengthen the department which was developing semiconductor lasers for optical fibre systems. The layers in these structures contained indium, gallium, phosphorus and arsenic as well as dopants. They were initially grown by deposition from molten indium, but a newer deposition technique (MOVPE) from the gas phase was expected to give better control of composition and thickness. In MOVPE the raw materials are transported into the reaction chamber in separate streams of hydrogen and John was asked to create instruments to monitor the concentrations in each hydrogen stream. The impressive result was an instrument known jocularly within the department as a Staggometer, which worked by instantaneous measurements of the velocity of sound in each gas stream. (The velocity of sound is greatest in pure hydrogen and is lower when other substances are present.) Later versions of these instruments are now known by the name Epison and they can be found throughout the world in MOVPE equipment for depositing layers of complex compound semiconductors.

The takeover by Nortel led to the closure of the laser department Subsequently John worked on the planar waveguide project. Further shrinkage of work in Harlow resulted in John moving to a research position at Imperial College for a few years before his retirement. Outside work, John was a great lover of classical music and an extremely good pianist and organist.

Return to top of page

Mike Wright got there the hard way, achieved through numerous evening classes and City & Guilds and HNC qualifications and distinctions, over 8 years. His first job was with Cossor Electronics in 1963, but in 1966 he was recruited by STL to work on GaAsP Light Emitting Diodes. Mike made STL's first visible LED. After a couple of years he transferred to the Transmission lab, initially working for Brian Edwards, and later for John Weston. There he worked on various electronic communications systems including: Mallard, and a 800 MBit/s short range coaxial system for ITT FACE in Italy. In 1972 he was awarded the Cossor Award for being the most successful engineering student at Harlow College.

In 1974 Mike began what would become a lifetime's involvement with Optical Fibre Communication. Initially his role solely involved the electronic parts of the systems. Later years would see him responsible for a group developing complete state of the art fibre transmission systems. Mike's early projects were the first experimental 2 and 34 MBit/s optical fibre systems.

Fibre systems research and development became more and more important, and by 1975 much of STL was devoted to the single task of developing and installing the famous 140 MBit/s Hitchin to Stevenage Field Demonstration System. For many years a photo of him was on display at the London Science Museum, together with some of the equipment. Mikes contribution involved working with the hierarchy of multiplexers, designing terminal & repeater units, installing them and maintaining them in the field. In a laboratory of competitive prima donnas, Mikes unruffled approach, and attention to detail always brought calm and reason.

In 1979, he joined Derek Gardner in Peter Radley's division to work as Principal Engineer leading a challenging new project on optical fibre undersea transmission systems: Systems that would cross the deepest oceans. Mike was responsible for the system configuration & the electronics. After working on the UK-Belgium un-repeated link, his next project was the world's first transoceanic fibre system between the UK and the USA: TAT-8.

Next, working for Jeff Farrington, Mike had responsibility for a succession of challenging projects, providing Integrated Circuits for a whole series of subsequent transatlantic fibre systems TAT-9, NL16, and TAT-12 in 1993. Later he returned to more esoteric projects and managed the development of the ground-breaking experimental 20 GB/s Soliton optical transmission system in 1994.

Mike Wright took temporary responsibility for the Optical, Systems group when Division Manager Mike Scott departed in 1995. When Garry Adams arrived to take over, he found that Mike had gone to great lengths to make the transition as easy as possible. It soon became clear to Garry that he needed a 'right hand man' who knew the ropes and could free him from much of the day to day running of the group whilst he managed the increasing Nortel politics. So Mikes role then became managing the background operation, freeing Garry's other managers to do their technical management roles unhindered, for which they had good reason to be grateful. A large part of the huge impact that the Harlow Optical group made within Nortel, can be traced to Mike's smooth running of the background operation during this time. His attention to detail was always impressive, he always had all the information you could ever want on some giant Excel spreadsheet.

In 1999 Mike was Project Manager for the state of the art 80 Gb/s, 80 kilometres long Soliton transmission demonstration that was exhibited in Geneva, to demonstrate Nortel's prowess in ultra-high speed optical transmission technology. This was an exceedingly ambitious project; Just 9 months to design the system, build a fully working prototype, and then ship it to Switzerland, where it had to work perfectly in front of all of Nortel's biggest customers and critics. There were pressures of a silly schedule, impossibly advanced and untried technology, and a tangle of very bright and disparate individuals from throughout the optics lab in Harlow. Mike was consistently a nice guy, a gentle leader, who kept a sense of humour and perspective through the peaks and troughs of the project. Although its success was not certain, his relaxed and supportive manner was crucial in shepherding the team to a common goal and eventual success against all the odds. Mike was one of those managers that engineers said they enjoyed working for, because he trusted them to do the technical job without interfering. No-one has ever heard a bad word spoken against Mike. In a long career spanning forty years, he made very few enemies and many many friends.

Sadly Mike fell ill shortly before the group's closure in 2004. He lived his remaining years with remarkable courage and dignity, keeping his dry sense of humour and never for once complaining. I am proud to have known him and miss him.

Richard Epworth November 23rd, 2009

Return to top of page

To provide contributions, please email the webmaster