[Ground-station] Notes from Franklin Antonio's memorial service in San Diego

[Michelle Thompson]

One of several events honoring the life and times of Franklin Antonio was
held this past week. Thank you to Ken Easton for representing those of us
that could not attend the memorial service organized by Qualcomm
Incorporated. I know a lot of you on the list that would have wanted to be
there. It was an "invite only" event, therefore there was an impediment for
nontraditional or non-corporate people. Ken reported that it was recorded.

As you probably know, Franklin was a founder of Qualcomm and served as its
CTO. He was a supporter of ORI from the Phase 5 google list era and gave us
a lot of valuable advice.

The highlights from the memorial service were testimonials from SETI
Institute and Father Joe's Village.

SETI Institute is the "search for extraterrestrial life" people. Franklin
was a big part of SETI. The feeds for the antennas at the Allen Telescope
Array are named after him, and they are really super cool. (Literally -
because they're super cooled)

There was a really neat noise mitigation effort a couple years ago, and a
big push to get the entire array working "all at once". Not many people
know how little of the site worked at any one time.

I have a lot of photos of these feeds from the GNU Radio hackfest at ATA
before covid, but this one photo is better at documenting what we're
talking about.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/52222101603/in/photolist-2nyFVpG-2nyFVq8-9A7URX-56qpTX-3nEGPx

Franklin wanted to do SETI photon detection. I worked with him to find a
site for a geodesic photon FPGA detection dome on Palomar. It was too
polluted on my side of the mountain, and there wasn't a way to get fiber
optic laid down properly from the other side. That was where we were at as
of this summer.

It was great being able to work with him on this.

Both of these efforts benefited from Franklin's money. Money alone,
however, was not what Franklin gave.

His time and expertise were freely given. He let the projects "win", he
showed up and solved problems, and he enforced some repercussions
(harassment, unethical practices) when things went off track.

Father Joe's Village can be found here https://my.neighbor.org/ but you
should read about it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Carroll_(priest)

Franklin admired Father Joe's Village because they simply got things done
competently and well. He was a huge force adder for a very huge problem.
With San Diego's mild climate, we have a very large homeless population.
Franklin helped reduce misery by supporting a highly effective
organization. He believed in this mission and inspired many others to pitch
in.

Franklin worked hard at SETI to get them to "do SETI" and maybe do a bit
less of "do academia". He succeeded. Plenty to learn from his example.

-Michelle Thompson
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