Stephen L. Johnston is Editor-in-Chief of the International Radar Directory and also a consultant. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on October 13, 1923. He received from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia the BEE Degree with honor in 1948 and the MSEE Degree in 1949. During World War II he served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps in the South Pacific after attendance at the Southern Signal Corps Radar School. In 1945 he provided radio communications for U.S. radio broadcast correspondents with General MacAr-thur including the surrender ceremony on VJ Day.
From 1947 to 1950 he was a research assistant at the Engineering Experiment Station of Georgia Tech. He entered Federal Civil Service in 1950 at the Joint Long-Range Proving Ground, Patrick Air Force Base, Flor-ida. From 1951-1980 he was employed by the U.S. Army Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama and he retired from the U.S. Army Missile Command Advanced Systems Concept Office. His International Radar Directory CD-ROM (1998) is now in use around the world. He is author of two books, Radar Electronic Counter Countermeasures (Artech House 1979 and Robert Krieger 1985) and Millimeter Wave Radar (Artech House 1980), and chapters on ECCM in Modern Radar Techniques (London, Collins Professional Technical books, 1987) and Airborne Early Warning Radar (Artech House, 1989). He has given short courses around the world on his two books as lecturer for the George Washington Continuing Engineering Education Program, the Continuing Education Institute, and other sponsors. He holds two U.S. patents.
Mr. Johnston’s awards/honors/professional organizations include: election to 2001 Class of Georgia Tech’s Engineering Hall of Fame, IEEE Fellow Class of 2000, AOC Board special award 2000, IEEE Centennial Medal 1984, Outstanding Service Award Huntsville Chapter National Society of Professional Engineers 1964, IEEE Huntsville Section Distinguished Service Award 1962, Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society Georgia Tech 1947, past AIAA Associate Fellow, member of the Association of Old Crows Electronic Warfare Society, registered Professional Engineer Alabama, licensed amateur radio operator for 40 years, past President of the Redstone Re-bel Roost AOC, and served on the IEEE History Committee. He currently serves on the IEEE AESS Radar Sys-tems Panel and is past Chair of the Radar ECCM Committee of the Panel. He created the term ECCM Improve-ment Factor that was incorporated into the IEEE Standard Radar Terms and Definitions. His session on Radar ECCM received the best technical session award at ELECTRO 76 in Boston.
Mr. Johnston has published and presented over 50 papers at numerous international technical confer-ences and symposia, both professional and government including the DOD Tri Service Radar Symposia, Joint EW Conferences, NATO SET LPI Symposium and AOC ED Symposia. His papers have been published in vari-ous U.S. and UK technical journals and international conference proceedings in Czechoslovakia, China (3 times), France (3 times), Germany, Poland, UK, and U.S. His areas of expertise include radar system analysis, electronic warfare, weapon system simulation, penetration aids for ballistic missiles, target signature characteristics, ballis-tic missile trajectory and guidance analysis, countermortar radars, meteorological radar, Doppler meteorological radar, millimeter/submillimeter wave radar, millimeter/sub millimeter wave propagation, and magnetic bubbles.
Mr. Johnston was appointed first Historian of the Signal Company, Aircraft Warning, Hawaii (SCAWH) Association in recognition of his historical research of it. His research located about 80 SCAWH men culminat-ing in the first SCAWH reunion. He located many valuable documents concerning the first U.S. use of radar in a military action by SCAWH in their detection of the Japanese attack on Hawaii on December 7, 1941and pub-lished several papers detailing that event. In February 2000 he made the dedicatory speech when a bronze marker was placed at the Opana radar site in Hawaii marking that first use of radar in a military action at the start of World War II.