[IRCA] Fw: (was: New MW QSL) Ernest R. Cooper? Part 3

["John Callarman" <JohnCallarman@xxxxxxx>]

Thus endeth the marathon.

John Callarman, KA9SPA, Family Genealogist, Retired Newspaper Editor, DX-oyente, Krum TX (AKA Qal R. Mann, Krumudgeon)
----- Original Message ----- 
From: John Callarman<mailto:JohnCallarman@xxxxxxx> 
To: Mailing list for the International Radio Club of America<mailto:irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 8:13 PM
Subject: Re: [IRCA] (was: New MW QSL) Ernest R. Cooper?


Jim Pogue wrote: "Gee John, it sure would be great if someone (hint, hint) could begin compiling some of these great stories and biographies."

 

There are some other names I would add to Harry Helms list of, not  necessarily fathers of DX but those who have helped, in Harry's  words, "create today's DX hobby." 

 

Bob Cooper, no relation to Dick or Ernie, is the TV-FM DX guru. Cooper  founded the American Ionospheric Propagation Association (which later  became the Worldwide Television FM-TV DX Assocation) in 1954, and in  

1960, he established DXing Horizons Magazine, which was for a time the  home of Ken Boord's SWBC work. Cooper was a pioneer in the cable TV  industry, which started as a means of importing signals from distant  on-air TV stations into remote, otherwise unserved areas. I recall  that one of Cooper's DXing Horizons editors was Glen Kippel, a  Colorado broadcaster and engineer whom I convinced the manager of  KTUE, Tulia, Texas, to hire. Later Glen worked at KIXZ in Amarillo   with two other fellow NRC'ers, John Tudenham and Jerry Hickman. 

 

Another DXing Horizons columnist was Bruce Elving, whose FM Atlas is  the FM equivalent of the NRC Log. Elving is another who deserves to be  on the list of those who are responsible for helping to create today's  DX hobby. I first met Bruce at the NRC's 1991 Omaha convention, where  he was invited to speak about FM DX, and again at the 2002 WTFDA  convention in Yukon, Oklahoma. His monthly newsletter is one of the  mainstays of available information on the FM end of the broadcast  industry. 

 

Chip Kelly, a Dallas area resident, founded 100000watts, which Scott  Fybush now operates since it has become an arm of Clear Channel's M  Street Journal. I enjoyed photographing a historic first meeting of  Fybush and Kelly in the DFW area in 2002 during a tower-hunting  expedition. Fybush's Tower of the Week website is one of the fun stops  on my Internet favorite tab. The information source Kelly invented and  Fybush now oversees put both of these gentlemen on my list of current  hobby stalwarts. 

 

John Bryant, retired architecture department professor at Oklahoma  State, compiler of an updated list of Japanese BCB stations, author of  a history of Zenith radios, one of today's top BCB antenna researchers  and DXpedition users, and one of five founders of Corazon-DX, a  website that deals with Mexican AM stations, goes on my list. 

 

So does Jerry Berg, a Connecticut attorney, who, with Don Jensen, kept  up the Numero Uno mailing list up until a couple of years ago, and who  has established a mechanism for preserving historic verifications,  deserves mention. 

 

So do Wayne Heinen, who so capably compiles and edits the NRC Log;  Fred Vobbe, who for a couple of decades has made the hobby available  to the visually handicapped via NRC's monthly DX Audio Service tapes;  Paul Swearingen, who has set a longevity record as publisher of NRC's  DX News (however galling that may be to some on this list); and Kevin  Redding, who spends many hours making this valuable information source  available to the hobby, also are on my list of DX Hobby Heroes. 

 

It's been a labor of love on the part of everyone Harry and I have  mentioned in this thread and I hope, despite what Harry refers to as  "some very bad blood between" some of the names on his list of nine, I  hope that today, no blood will either boil or flow! (Qal R. Mann,  Krumudgeon and hysterical historian, ABDX via DXLD) 

 

John wrote-- ``The late Carleton Lord, in a treatise he did for the  NRC book, noted that Radio Golf, an invention of Frank H. Jones, owner  of a station in Cuba, was introduced in the Aug. 5, 1922 edition of  Radio Broadcasting News.`` 

 

Ah yes, Frank Jones. Back then, Cuba was not "that Communist country  where Fidel Castro lives." In fact, many silent films were shot in  Havana and wealthy businesspeople like Mr Jones set up radio stations  there -- his was in a small town called Tuinucu, but the main industry  there was the sugar business, and he was certainly involved in that.   His station was 6 KW, and liking a good rhyme, he used the slogan  "when you hear the sound of the cuckoo, you're listing to radio  Tuinucu" -- or something like that. DX'ers learned to identify certain  stations by their unique sounders and slogans.  6KW was not the only  important station people could receive from Cuba -- PWX in Havana was  owned by the Telephone Company and a number of US performers went  there to broadcast. Ah the good old days before ideology became more  important that doing interesting radio... 

 

That having been said, did Mr Jones really come up with the idea of  Radio Golf? We may never know. Radio Broadcasting News was a  publication of Westinghouse, which automatically makes me suspect it,  since KDKA and other Westinghouse stations were famous for using their  publicity department to make claims for having done things first when  in fact they had NOT -- but their corporate publicists were able to  outshout the little entrepreneurs and amateurs who had achieved the  "first" before Westinghouse. Jones had quite an impressive station and  the ships at sea often reported hearing it throughout the 1920s, as  did many American listeners. On the other hand, I have many copies of  early radio mags that suggest the competitiveness of the early amateur  made even DX'ers want to be more than just passive listeners -- they  wanted to compete as the hams did, and hear more stations from more  places (most radio mags still listed ham radio achievements during the  20s, and the non-ham could see how hams were competing to work all  states, work all countries, etc.) 

 

By the way, John, I have the announcement in Radio World, 8 July 1922  of the founding of the National Radio Club! (Donna Halper, ibid.) 


There was one survivor of the tragic 1962 trip from Denver to Indianapolis for the 1963 convention - Marv Robbins, who had been one of the hosts for the 1959 Omaha NRC convention and the 1963 Denver gathering at which the IRCA seeds were planted. The Nittler brother who died was Francis H. Nittler (who had one of the finest collections of Mexican BCB verifications I've enjoyed seeing.) Maurice W. Nittler was the surviving brother, who is still active in IRCA as Bill Nittler.

John Callarman, KA9SPA, Family Genealogist, Retired Newspaper Editor, DX-oyente, Krum TX (AKA Qal R. Mann, Krumudgeon)
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