Hilmer L. Swanson was Senior Staff Scientist for the broadcast division of Harris Corporation. He joined Collins Radio Company in 1960, working on design of FM and shortwave transmitters. In 1965 he joined Gates Radio (which became Harris Broadcast), becoming Senior Staff Scientist in 1985. Among his exceptional work on the advanced of AM broadcast technology is the development of transmitters using pulse duration modulation (PDM), progressive amplitude modulation, polyphase PDM, amplitude modulation using digital techniques and numerous other patented inventions increasing the performance and efficiency of AM transmitters.
George Marti is known for systems for remote broadcasting and Studio Transmitter Links developed by his company Marti Electronics. Having begun his career with Fort Worth Texas radio stations KTAT-AM and KFJZ-FM in the 1930’s, after military service in World War II he returned to KFJZ and put his own stations KCLE-AM and KCLE-FM on the air in the late 1940’s. Selling KCLE in 1960, he then began manufacturing Remote Pickup equipment and later STL equipment, having lobbied the FCC to allow their use. His inventions revolutionized radio broadcasting, which had to use expense and unreliable telephone lines prior to Marti equipment. At the time Marti Electronics was sold to Broadcast Electronics in 1994, Marti equipment was in more than 80 percent of radio stations worldwide
Kerns Powers contributed for over 40 years to the development of practical color television systems and new television signal processing techniques. Joining RCA Labs in 1951 as a Member of the Technical Staff, he was part of the team at RCA Labs that pioneered color television development resulting in the NTSC color television system. Rising to the position of Staff Vice President, Government Systems and Communications Research at RCA Labs, he was in charge of advanced systems research in television broadcasting, data transmission and satellite communications, and was a principal voice in early research on HDTV and enhanced broadcasting system. A holder of 15 patents, he retired from RCA in 1987 and became a consultant to the David Sarnoff Research Center.
As consulting engineers at the consulting firm bearing their names, Robert L. Hammett and Edward Edison authored literally hundreds of engineering reports and technical statements for broadcast clients. Innovative projects included duplexing of radio and TV transmitters into single antennas, the use of sample transformers for improved AM monitoring, computer-aided channel allocation study methods, aerial measurement techniques for radio and TV transmitting antennas, and many others. Hammett began his career as a Research Associate in the Harvard University Radio Research Lab in 1943 before becoming a consulting engineer. Edison joined RCA in 1942, staying until 1955 when he began his own consultancy. The firm of Hammett & Edison was formed by the principals in 1957.
James C. McKinney was named Chairman of the Advanced Television Systems Committee in 1989, following two years of service as Deputy Assistant to the President of the U.S. At ATSC he led the work of the voluntary standards organization in the development and documentation of advanced television systems including High Definition Television, aiming toward FCC adoption of a new standard for TV broadcasting. He began his long government service career in 1963 and while at the FCC he headed three major bureaus encompassing field engineering, monitoring, land mobile, aviation, marine, radio and TV broadcasting, cable TV and satellites.
Robert M. Silliman began his radio engineering career in 1937 at the FCC as engineer, first in the field office in St Paul MN and then in the Engineering Department in Washington DC. During World War II he worked for the Radio Research Lab at Harvard University, developing antennas to be used on aircraft. He opened his engineering consulting practice in Washington DC in 1946, continuing as a senior partner in the successor firm of Silliman and Silliman along with his son Tom. He also served as President of the manufacturing firm Electronics Research Inc. from 1963 to 1981 and then became Chairman of the Board. As a consultant he was involved in all aspects of radio engineering and was an innovator in many areas, especially AM directional antenna array adjustment and FM antenna and master antenna design. His patented FM antenna design, marketed initially as the Collins Ring Antenna was the industry standard for many years.
Stanley Baron began his career as an engineer with the General Electric Company in 1961 designing digital display systems. He was a section manager at CBS Laboratories from 1965 to 1972, product development manager with Microtime and managing engineer with Thomson-CSF before joining NBC in 1985, becoming NBC’s managing director of television technology. While at CBS he was the inventor of the Vidifont digital graphics generator, the first digital graphics device used in television production, as well as other inventions pertaining to digital television imaging throughout his career. He was also a principal in the early 1980’s agreement and adoption of the ITU international standard for digital television known as CCIR 601 and in 1992 became chair of the ITU Task Group developing international agreements on digital terrestrial television broadcasting.
Charles T. Morgan began his broadcast career with WARM in Scranton PA in 1953. He joined Susquehanna Broadcasting in 1960 serving in various engineering and management capacities and in 1990 was named Senior Vice President as well as Vice President of Engineering. He served as Chairman of the National Radio Systems Committee (NRSC) beginning in 1984. Under his leadership the NRSC created standards for AM, RBDS data transmission for FM, and embarked on standard setting for digital audio broadcasting (DAB). A strong advocate for digital radio, in his acceptance speech for the award he said: “Our future could well depend on the development of the In Band / On Channel DAB systems now being tested by the NRSC.”
Thomas J. Vaughan was a principal in T.J. Vaughan and Associates, Consulting Engineers beginning in 1965 and President of PESA Micro Communications Inc. beginning in 1966, providing transmission systems, components, antennas and engineering services to the broadcast industry. Among many firsts, he pioneered circularly polarized TV transmission, invented and produced the first remotely controlled ENG receiving antenna systems, and developed high power circular waveguide and other waveguide components. An author of forty publications and eight patents, he was an early leader in high definition television transmission, providing the special transmit antenna in the January 1987 HDTV transmissions in Washington DC and subsequently supplied UHF filtering equipment in the industry’s advanced television field tests in Charlotte NC.
Robert A. Orban began marketing products under the Orban/Parsound trade name in 1969, having received his Masters Degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1968. In 1973, Orban introduced the first popularly priced parametric equalizer. In 1975, he set up Orban Associates as a privately held company and designed and introduced the Optimod-FM Model 8000, which became the industry standard for FM stations. Optimod processors were continually updated and improved on a regular basis along with other signal processing equipment for radio stations. A holder of 17 patents on various types of audio processing equipment, he also was a principal contributor to the development of NRSC standards for AM improvement.
Carl G. Eilers began working at Zenith Radio Corporation in 1948, spending his entire career with Zenith, first in subscription television system research, and eventually becoming Manager, Electronic Systems R&D. He led the group that developed Multichannel Television Sound, known as the BTSC standard adopted by the FCC in 1984. In the 1950’s he developed the FM Stereophonic System that would be adopted for use by radio stations in the US by the FCC in 1960. He also contributed to development of key aspects of the Zenith Digital Spectrum Compatible High Definition Television System, which paved the way for the transmission scheme documented in the ATSC DTV Standard.
Ogden “Oggie” Prestholdt was a well known expert in the radio antenna and transmitter fields. Beginning his career in 1938 as director of technical operations at WLOL radio and putting the station on the air in 1940, he became a network engineer for the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in New York in 1943, eventually becoming Director of Radio Engineering in 1960, working on innovative RF projects such as a combined radio transmitter facility for both the CBS and NBC radio stations in New York City. He joined the A.D. Ring consulting firm in 1969 where he continued designing new antennas and transmitters. He retired in 1985 but continued to work on special projects, including the 1990 field testing by NAB of his skywave suppression antenna, described in his paper presented at the 1986 NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference.
Charles W. Rhodes began a 25-year career with Tektronix in 1956, rising to the position of Chief Engineer, Television Products Division, designing television broadcast test and measurement equipment. He is the inventor of the Vectorscope, a fundamental tool for engineers to assess and adjust color in analog broadcast systems. From 1982 to 1986 he was Principal Scientist at Scientific-Atlanta, contributing to the B-MAC satellite television system. He then joined Philips Laboratories , designing early HDTV systems and became the first staff member of the Advanced Television Test Center, where he served as its Chief Scientist from 1988 to 1995. At ATTC, he developed unique test equipment, including ATTC’s RF test bed, and led the testing of multiple advanced television transmission systems , in cooperation between ATTC, the FCC and the FCC Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service (ACATS), leading to the 1995 recommendation to the FCC for adoption of the ATSC Digital Television Standard.
George Jacobs is credited as a principal in pioneering and developing the Voice of America broadcast system as well as modernization of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty broadcasting facilities. He also was active in the international frequency management, representing the USA at almost every ITU broadcasting conference since 1949. Starting his career with VOA in 1949, he retired from government service in 1980, heading his own consulting engineering organization specializing in international broadcasting. He was passionate about the role shortwave radio played in fighting the Cold War and in his award acceptance speech, he noted that one of the achievements he was most proud of was the role he played in having a former jamming transmitter converted into a 75kW AM broadcast transmitter, serving as the basis for establishing the first independent radio station in Moscow, Russia.
Michael J. Sherlock had a 36-year career at NBC, retiring in 1997 as Executive Vice President of Technology. Over that time period he served as a leader of the industry with a keen vision for pioneering implementation of important new broadcast technologies, including stereo audio transmissions, the NBC Ku Band satellite system, Olympics coverage, small format taping, building new broadcast facilities and NBC’s sponsorship of the enhanced NTSC system ACTV and the digital transmission proponent system called AD-HDTV. In 1989 he became chair of the ATSC Broadcasters Caucus, which built consensus among broadcast networks and groups on a myriad of issues leading to the successful adoption of the ATSC DTV Standard by the FCC in 1996. His advocacy role in HDTV is documented in the book “Defining Vision” by Joel Brinkley, who was the keynote speaker at the Technology Luncheon where Sherlock received his award.
John Henry Battison was a veteran of 52 years in broadcast engineering and founder of the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE). Educated as a radio engineer in England, he came to the US in the mid 1940’s and joined KMBC in Kansas City. Over the years he served as the director of engineering in many different broadcast facilities, both in the US and overseas. He was known as an authority on directional transmitting antenna, wrote several books on broadcast engineering and presented numerous papers at conferences in the US and abroad. He was a senior member of the Institute of Radio Engineers from 1949 until 1961, when he resigned in disagreement with the proposed merger with IEE. Proposing his idea of creating a separate broadcast engineering society, NAB offered space for an initial meeting at its Convention in Chicago, which was attended by about 100 engineers. The result was the founding of the SBE and he became the first SBE President in 1965. He ended his award acceptance speech with the statement: “Speaking as an RF engineer I still maintain ‘audio is something that messes up a nice clean carrier!’”
Robert Hopkins was Vice President and General Manager of Sony Pictures High Definition Center, a production and post-production facility specializing in the use of high definition technology. From 1985 until 1995 he was the Executive Director of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC). During his ATSC tenure, ATSC developed the Digital Television Standard, which was adopted by the FCC for use in the US, culminating a 9-year standardization effort begun in 1987. During his time at ATSC, he was also chosen by the Department of State as the primary US spokesman on digital television for ITU activities and efforts to reach world-wide agreement on digital television standards. Prior to ATSC, beginning in 1964 he spent 20 years working for the RCA David Sarnoff Research Center, RCA Broadcast Systems and RCA Jersey, serving in various technical and management positions associated with development and manufacturing of television broadcasting equipment.
Geoff Mendenhall began his career as a part time broadcast technician in 1963 while still in high school. He became a broadcast equipment design engineer at Harris Broadcast in 1973, moving to Broadcast Electronics from 1978 to 1993 and then back to Harris where he eventually became Vice President of Advanced Product Development. Beginning in 1976, he led the team that developed the first of a series of revolutionary FM exciters. He also had a major impact on the design of modern FM transmitter power amplifiers, including many innovations to high efficiency, high power, single tube RF amplifiers and solid state RF driver systems. A prolific author of dozens of technical papers and contributions to several books on radio engineering, he was one of the best known experts on FM transmission.
John J. Turner, President of Turner Engineering Inc., founded his consulting/engineering/system integration company in 1967, originally focusing primarily on the modification and repair of helical scan video tape equipment and low cost color cameras. The business developed over the years to include large scale, cutting edge projects for telcos, network broadcasters and satellite operators. Turner coordinated some of the first demonstrations of HDTV on Capitol Hill in the late 80’s, served as the system integrator for the world’s first live HDTV broadcast of a major league baseball game in 1997 and coordinated HDTV distribution of John Glenn’s space shuttle launch in 1998. Beginning in 1989, Turner was retained annually by NAB to design and manage demonstrations of the latest HDTV technologies at the NAB Convention, where many innovations in HDTV were first demonstrated and experienced, essentially constructing a fully operational broadcast facility and coordinating the interface between the HDTV facility and booths on the exhibit floor.
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