OPEN HOUSE FOR DAYTON HAMVENTION

Dayton Hamvention attendees were invited to a special open house on Saturday evening, May 21 at the VOA Museum. Over 100 amateur radio operators came down from Dayton for refreshments and tours of the three museums and amateur radio station. Here are three pictures of one group in the Control  Room listening to the history of the Voice of America.

GRANDAUGHTER OF LONGTIME CROSLEY EMPLOYEE VISITS

Joan Baysore, grandaughter of longtime Crosley rigger James A. Baysore visited the station for a tour on May 21, 2016.  Jim Baysore war responsible for the construction of the shortwave antennas on Everybody's Farm in Mason as well as all of the Voice of America antennas at the Bethany Relay Station during World War II.

Just for fun, here is a picture of Jim Baysore (standing) on the roof of the WLWT television transmitter building, 2222 Chicasaw Street, in 1951 in the Clifton area of Cincinnati.

HAMS THRONG TO HARA ARENA FOR 2016 DAYTON HAMVENTION

by James E. O’Neal

on 05.23.2016

The crowd inside Hara Arena at the 2016 Dayton Hamvention

The 65th annual Dayton “Hamvention” officially got underway in Dayton, Ohio, Friday morning with crowds of radio amateurs streaming in from virtually every point of the compass to check out the latest in ham radio equipment, look for a vintage “rig” or replacement parts for one in the vast flea market, take in the numerous ham radio-related presentations offered, or to socialize and engage in “eyeball QSOs” (speaking to each other in person rather than via radio).

Despite rain on Saturday, the hams were very good at “keeping the show going” and were ready with tents, tarps and foul weather gear, with some wet feet about the only casualties of the storm.

Vintage broadcast equipment is usually seen for sale at the flea market and this year was no exception. This Gates Gatesway 80 eight-pot console might have found a new home if the price was right.

A final headcount was not immediately available but according to Hamvention media chairman, Henry Ruminski, W8HJR, the number was expected to be close to 25,000. The Hamvention is something of a major stimulus to the Dayton-area economy, with most hotels, motels and RV parks completely filled, restaurants packed and roads crowded with vehicles sporting license plates with amateur radio call signs. Various estimates put the impact at somewhere between $10 and $20 million during the three-day event.

More than 200 commercial equipment vendors packed the exhibition space in Hara Arena, usually a sports venue, the home to the Hamvention for decades. The large surrounding parking lots were almost completely filled by flea market tailgaters.

Besides the arena and parking lot flea market, there were five meeting rooms to learn about the latest developments in such areas as portable HD antenna technology, digital operating modes, “fast scan” television on the ham bands, amateur radio satellite developments, radioteletype contesting, and more. Especially popular was a Saturday afternoon Federal Communications Commission forum hosted by Curt Bartholomew, N3GQ, senior emergency and continuity manager of the commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. The fact that Bartholomew is a radio amateur himself made the Q&A session even more lively.

Curt Bartholomew, senior emergency and continuity manager of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security, traveled from Washington to host an FCC forum at the Hamvention. Due to travel budget cuts, this was the first time the FCC was represented at the show in four years, and Bartholomew’s session was especially popular.

A familiar face, Jay Adrick, radio amateur and GatesAir technical advisor, was on hand at the VOA Museum booth to greet fellow hams and provide information about the area museum housed in the former Voice of America Bethany shortwave transmitting station.

VOA MUSEUM EXHIBIT HALL NAMED FOR ENGINEER

By Denise G. Callahan
Staff Writer, Journal-News

Clyde Haehnle is a legend at The National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting, and he was honored as such this weekend.

The 93-year-old was to be the guest of honor at a reception at VOA on Friday for being “the driving force in the development of the museum.” He provided matching funds for renovation of the West garage at VOA, but being 

a modest man, the former electrical engineer declined to name the size of his gift.

Haehnle started his career as a Crosley Broadcasting intern and went to work at VOA just prior to the Cold War, designing the antennas that would carry information across the globe. The VOA is precious to him.

“It was a historical event in the war, the Cold War, it contributed a great deal for the success of World War II and the Cold War,” he said.

Situated along Tylersville Road near Voice of America MetroPark, the facility and its technology served as the main conduit for the United States to present news, entertainment and educational programming from actual press agencies to people worldwide hungering for facts instead of state-fed propaganda during the Cold War.
The Voice of America Bethany Relay Station in West Chester Twp. was one of three, with similar facilities in New York and California. The Butler County facility was the main transmission facility for news, entertainment and educational programming going to Europe, North Africa and South America.

As vice president of engineering at WLW, he worked off and on at the VOA until 1962. He was involved in the design and construction of television stations in Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Indianapolis and seven stations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Jack Dominic, executive director of the museum, said Haehnle helped build the VOA Bethany station in 1944, and when the facility was decommissioned in the 1990s, he and a few others decided a museum was needed. An exhibit hall at the museum has been restored and will be named after Haehnle.

“Clyde has probably been the most significant person in the development of the museum,” he said.

Haehnle describes himself simply as “an old man,” but Dominic said he is anything but.

“He is brilliant,” Dominic said. “At 93 he’s feeble in gait but his mind is like a 14-year-old.”

Haehnle lost his wife of 68 years Ethel a week-and-a-half ago, and his son Gary was in from California — where he is a Superior Court judge — for the funeral. Gary said his parents always put his brother and three sisters first, and they never wanted for anything.

“He made sure we were able to fulfill our dreams; we all got to go to college. They just always made sure we had what we needed to get through life,” the judge said. “Sometimes they cut back on their stuff so we got ours; they sacrificed so we could make it.”

Haehnle, who has lived most of life in Finneytown, said his favorite thing to do was work, but he played a little golf at the Maketewah Country Club on the side. He has 13 grandchildren and two great grandchildren.


“I never resented a day doing to work. It was always a challenge,” he said. “As I teach my grandsons, a man’s got two important decisions to make in life: most important is pick the right partner and second is pick the right career.”

Clyde Haehnle introduced by Museum Board President Ken Rieser (Jay Adrick photo)

Clyde Haehnle (Oak Tree Communications photo)

Clyde Haehnle presented with a Founders Award by Mike Martini of Media Heritage (Jay Adrick photo)

(Jay Adrick photo)

VOA MUSEUM BOARD MEMBER ADRICK NAMED FELLOW OF THE SOCIETY OF BROADCAST ENGINEERS

SBE Names Three Members to Fellow

NAB Show, Las Vegas, NV - The Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) has elevated three members to the membership rank of Fellow. The SBE Board of Directors elected Jay Adrick; Wayne M. Pecena, CPBE, 8-VSB, AMD, DRB, CBNE; and Joseph L. Snelson, CPBE, 8-VSB, at its meeting held Sunday, April 17 in Las Vegas during the 2016 NAB Show.

Jay Adrick has been an independent broadcast consultant since 2013 after he retired from many years of working for Harris Broadcast. He now consults for GatesAir. He currently serves as the chairman of the ATSC Mobile Emergency Alerting System Integration Team. Jay is a Fellow of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers and a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society. He was the 2013 recipient of the National Association of Broadcasters Television Engineering Achievement Award.

Wayne M. Pecena, CPBE, 8-VSB, AMD, DRB, CBNE, is the assistant director of educational broadcast services in the Office of Information Technology at Texas A&M University, in College Station, TX. He has served on the SBE board of directors since 2012 when he was also appointed the chair of the Education Committee. In 2012, Wayne received the James C. Wulliman SBE Educator of the Year award.

Joseph L. Snelson, CPBE, 8-VSB, is vice president of engineering for Meredith Corporation, in Las Vegas, NV. He is the immediate past president of the society. He is currently the chair of the national Government Relations Committee. He has served on the NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference Committee, including terms as chair, and is active in the ATSC.

The Fellow honor is the highest membership level in the SBE. Members must have made significant contributions to the broadcast engineering field or the SBE. Candidates are nominated by their peers. Since the Society's founding more than 50 years ago, 75 members have been honored with the Fellow rank.

The three recipients will be recognized for their election to Fellow during the SBE National Awards Dinner on Oct. 26, 2016, in Columbus, OH, during the annual SBE National Meeting, which will be held in conjunction with the Ohio Association of Broadcasters Engineering Conference.

DO YOU REMEMBER THE CROSLEY SHELVADOR REFRIGERATOR?

 

Here is a page form the 1939 Crosley Shelvador recipe book.

West Chester museum renovation to honor VOA’s worldwide influence

By Eric Schwartzberg

Staff Writer, Journal-News

WEST CHESTER TWP. — 

Jack Dominic walked out the front of the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting to welcome the unannounced guest.

Speaking with a thick Russian accent, the man explained the purpose of his visit to Dominic, the museum’s executive director: “I have been wanting to come here for years. I just live down the street. I’ve got something for you.”

Opening the trunk of his car, the man and his wife pulled out a worn, nondescript shortwave radio — one manufactured by the Soviet Union in the early 1960s at the height of the Cold War — and presented it Dominic with an explanation.

“We call this our under-the-blanket radio,” said the man, who previously lived in Ukraine and used the radio in the 1960s and 1970s. “Most of my neighbors would have one like it.”

The radio, like countless others, was specifically designed to receive only Soviet transmissions, effectively blocking out news broadcasts from the outside world.

“He called it the under-the-blanket radio because nobody was supposed to be able to do this,” Dominic said, adding that everybody “knew a guy” who could.

However, many resourceful people found others who could doctor the device so it received Voice of America broadcasts, which originated in the United States from West Chester’s Voice of America Bethany Relay Station.

Situated along Tylersville Road near Voice of America MetroPark, the facility and its technology served as the main conduit for the United States to present news, entertainment and educational programming from actual press agencies to people worldwide hungering for facts instead of state-fed propaganda.

On Oct. 17, a woman from Loveland with a Polish accent stopped by the museum for an open house and told Dominic she had been very active in Poland’s Solidarity movement, which fought for the country’s independence in the 1980s.

“She was actually put in jail because she published stuff that they didn’t want to see and she said she had a radio like this,” Dominic said.

An interview Dominic conducted with a man from a former Soviet satellite country succinctly captured the importance of VOA’s mission to spread factual information far and wide.

“He said, ‘In Russia, airplanes never crashed. Crops were always good. We knew better than that.’”

Hardly a month goes by without someone dropping by the museum to share the importance of the relay station in their lives, Dominic said.

“They find out that this place is here and it’s unbelievable. They have tears in their eyes,” he said. “They all say the same thing: ‘I never thought I would see where these broadcasts were coming from.’ That’s the power of this place.”

Stories like those are why the VOA Museum embarked in 2013 on a $12 million capital campaign, one that this month launched renovation efforts meant to improve aesthetics, create handicapped accessibility and carve out areas for both temporary and permanent exhibits, as well as a multipurpose area for lectures and workshops.

The revamp is aimed at providing the ultimate way to highlight the Voice of America Bethany Relay Station’s legacy: keeping millions of people worldwide informed.

Constructed in 1944, the Voice of America Bethany Relay Station in West Chester Twp. was one of three, with similar facilities in New York and California, Dominic said.

“They didn’t want to put too many eggs in a basket on the East Coast and they didn’t want to put too many eggs in a basket on the West Coast because of the U-Boats and all of that,” he said.

The Butler County facility was the main transmission facility for new, entertainment and educational programming going to Europe, North Africa and South America.

“From 1945 until 1995, it operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with six of the most powerful (short-wave) transmitters in the world,” Dominic said. “They were 2 million watts each.”

The facility, which once sat on a sprawling property on the northeast corner of Tylersville and Cox roads, was decommissioned in 1995. Most of the land went to Voice of America MetroPark and the Voice of America Centre shopping complex. Now the broadcast towers that stood as blinking landmarks to passing motorists on Interstate 75 are gone and the iconic, art deco building sits on a significantly smaller property that many motorists likely pass without knowing its vast, impactful history.

Tours of the facility, including various historical exhibits, occur on the third Saturday of each month. Renovation efforts would change that to make the museum a six-days-a-week operation, Dominic said.

But the renovation effort is not a matter of building something “to house a bunch of old tubes and radios,” he said.

“There will be some old tubes and radios, but that’s not what this place is about,” Dominic said. “This place is to recognize and to celebrate the tremendous importance then and today of factual, truthful communication. “To preserve the whole concept of free and clear truthful information is not a historical remnant, it’s something we need to continue today.”

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose idea it was to develop the Voice of America effort, did so because Nazi Germany understood state-run media and the power it had to control and sway the masses, Dominic said.

“They had a whole division of propaganda and movies and … Hitler subsidized the purchase of shortwave radios for the German people, but guess what? They only received their channels,” he said.

The reason behind how Butler County ended up with such a facility in the first place should inspire pride, Dominic said.

“When they decided they wanted to build a facility like this, with high-powered transmitters, the only people in the entire United States that had the engineering prowess was (Powell Crosby Jr.),” he said.

Dominic said once such basics as heating, air conditioning, lighting and chairs are in place, a wide variety of displays and programming are envisioned.

“We want to have dialogue, maybe a lecture series on the importance of factual communication,” he said. “People who don’t pay attention to history are (doomed) to repeat it.”

A revamped VOA Museum also would mean a better way to exhibit the history and development of radio as a medium and the history of radio and TV broadcasting in Cincinnati, including everything from legions of singers, musicians and comedians to actors, journalists and the inventor of program syndication.

Before any of that can happen, the museum must reach its $12 million fundraising goal, including a $3 million endowment, Dominic said.

“Anyone who knows anything about museums … realizes that a turnstile is not going to fund it,” he said. “You’ve got to have reserves. Before we go full bore, we need to be sure we have an endowment.

“You can build this thing, but if you don’t have money to run it, you’re just digging yourself a hole.”

The National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting is trying to raise money for enhancements to the historic complex in West Chester Twp. NICK GRAHAM/STAFF

Voice of America Museum Director Jack Dominic sits in front of the transmitter control console at the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting in West Chester Twp. NICK GRAHAM/STAFF