Dr John Richardson

Dr Richardson, who has died aged 79, was also a gifted teacher and highly capable organiser. Known affectionately to colleagues and students alike as JR, he went to Leeds University as an undergraduate 1949, reading electrical engineering.

After graduating, he spent several years in Canada, initially as an Instructor at Toronto University and later as a project engineer engaged in microwave engineering at Sinclair Radio Laboratories, also in Toronto.

He was awarded a PhD in 1957 and returned to Leeds in 1961 as a lecturer in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering.

His research interest was in the design of high frequency antennas including those used for the reception of microwave signals which are used in nearly all modern communications systems, including mobile phones and GPS.

The problem to be overcome was designing antennas which were most efficient at picking up long-distance microwave signals. The design and appearance of these antennas are now taken for granted as the dishes seen on every kind of communications tower and every building with satellite TV.

Dr Richardson and his colleagues were beginning from scratch, and had to work out how best to collect microwave signals which are affected by atmospheric conditions.

Dr Richardson worked in a research group headed by Prof Peter Clarricoats, the youngest professor to have been appointed to a Chair in the Department.

Funded by the Institution of Electrical Engineers, in the late 1960s the Professor and Dr Richardson and a supporting team toured the country demonstrating the wonders of microwave communications to schools, societies and clubs, but even they may not have dreamt of the miniaturisation which has allowed devices hardly bigger than a matchbox to collect microwave signals.

Dr Richardson was promoted to a senior lectureship in 1969.

Throughout his academic career, he received countless plaudits for his teaching, being regarded by students as one of the best lecturers in the department. His love for his subject, his meticulous preparation, his powers of exposition, his gentle personality combined with an uncompromising insistence on the highest of standards and his constant readiness to lend support and advice made him exceptional.

Dr Richardson reached retirement age in 1995 but such was his value as a lecturer that he went on to hold an unbroken series of part-time appointments as Senior Fellow until the end of 2004.

To his colleagues, he remained a valued, trusted and admired friend, being described by one of them as part of the very bricks and mortar of the department.

Outside the university, Dr Richardson had a broad range of interests, notably in the arts – especially opera – and was a talented pianist and organist.

His wife, Olwyn, predeceased him, and he is survived by their two daughters, Judith and Claire.