Italian radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi used a parabolic reflector during the 1930s in investigations of UHF transmission from his boat in the Mediterranean. In 1931, a 1.7 GHz microwave relay telephone link across the English Channel was demonstrated using diameter dishes. The first large parabolic antenna, a 9 m dish, was built in 1937 by pioneering radio astronomer Grote Reber in his backyard, and the sky survey he did with it was one of the events that founded the field of radio astronomy.
