The happenstance birth of radio astronomy

Mars and Venus straddle Gemini. The moon goes as far south as it can this month. Saturn and Jupiter greet us in the morning. Uranus goes through conjunction while Mercury emerges from it. Scientists tried for a few decades to detect radio waves from outer space. Their crude equipment didn't find any. After the discovery of the ionosphere, some concluded that radio astronomy would never be possible. It's been nine decades since a telephone company engineer's happenstance discovery proved otherwise. This is part one in a series on radio astronomy developments that happened unexpectedly.