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

["John Callarman" <JohnCallarman@xxxxxxx>]

I sent this out yesterday, in response partially to Jim Pogue's note, hoping that it would fit ... at least I learned this list's size limit .. 35 kb ... so I'll break it into three parts ...

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."

Well, there has been some material put together a year or so ago on Kevin Redding's ABDX list, including a long treatise by the substantially undersigned individual. It started when Kevin referred to Don Kaskey and me as "Father's of DX," which Don and I questioned because, at least in my case, the hobby was well established before I came on the scene.

Harry Helms, who's been around almost as long as I have, compiled a list of "nominees" for Fathers of DX and shared it with the ABDX list, prompting me to kick in with my two bits worth (using up a sawbuck's worth of space to do so.) Broadcasting historian Donna Halper, who checks in from time to time on the ABDX list, joined in the thread as well.

I would not have this material readily available except that I did a complete Google search on myself and discovered that Glenn Hauser had archived a tremendous amount of material that's been spread on these threads, and, thanks to Glenn for that, I saved some of my proseless price that I hadn't considered it important enough to collect before.

Here follows the thread, as picked up by Hauser:

THE FATHERS OF DX 

 

If we were to compile a list of the "fathers of DX" --- those people  who, by their DX-related activities (commercial and non-commercial)  and publications --- helped define the DX hobby, these would be my  nominees in alphabetical order: 

 

Hank Bennett Gerry Dexter Perry Ferrell Bob Grove Glenn Hauser Don Jensen Tommy Kneitel Gordon Nelson Fred Osterman C. M. "Stan" Stanbury II 

 

The people above are very different, and, from personal knowledge, I know of some very bad blood between a few of them. But all, in various ways, are responsible for the DX hobby we have today --- their fingerprints are everywhere you look in DXing. Some --- like Dexter, Grove, Hauser, and Osterman --- are still active, some like Jensen and Kneitel have retired from the hobby, and others such as Ferrell,  Nelson, and Stanbury have died. There have been other contributors  over the years, but these are the main ones we owe our thanks for  helping create today's DX hobby (Harry Helms W5HLH, Wimberley, TX EM00 http://futureofradio.typepad.com/ ABDX via DXLD) 

 

And let's not forget that DX'ing goes all the way back to the mid  1920s when it was called 'Radio Golf' -- newspapers actually gave  prizes to the listeners who received the most stations from the most  distant places (Donna Halper, ibid.) 

 

Her comments were directed to Harry Helms' comprehensive list of  "Fathers of DX" that included Hank Bennett, Gerry Dexter, Perry  Ferrell, Bob Grove, Glenn Hauser, Don Jensen, Tommy Kneitel, Gordon  Nelson, Fred Osterman, C. M. "Stan" Stanbury II. 

 

Name-dropping and quibbling aren't my favorite activities, but I can  honestly say I have met and conversed with six of the nine people on  Harry's list ... never had the pleasure of meeting Hank Bennett, Bob  Grove or Tommy Kneitel ... but the point of my earlier comments were,  in addition to the fact that I don't qualify as a father of DX, that  the real fathers of DX were at least a generation before me. 

 

Harry's list is, with perhaps one exception, an excellent list of  people who have built upon the foundation established in the '20s by  largely unremembered individuals and in the '30s and '40s by some  fairly well documented individuals -- DX'ers, publishers and editors  of nationally circulated magazines and founders of radio clubs whose  efforts led to where we are now.  

 

If Harry's list can be termed the Fathers of DX, I'll offer a list  that could be called the Grandfathers of DX. My list is neither in  alphabetical order nor order of importance ... merely in order of when  they show up in my memory. Let me break them down by institution, and staying power: 

 

Radio News, later Radio & Television News, publisher Hugo Gernsbach  and Shortwave Broadcast Editor Kenneth R. Boord. There'll be more  references to Boord in this treatise. 

 

RADEX, Editor/Publisher and founder Fred C. Butler, who established  the magazine in 1924 as a newsletter listing station schedules. It  peaked in the mid-'30s, led in part by shortwave editor Page Taylor  and BCB editor Carleton Lord. Lord had earlier worked for a  competitor, Keller's Radio Call Book and Log, for many years wrote my  favorite column in the Newark News Radio Club Bulletin, and provided a  great amount of material for the National Radio Club's 50th nniversary  booklet. 

 

The Newark News Radio Club, founded in 1927, the first of several  clubs sponsored by newspapers. Irving R. Potts was its first president  and remained involved, even after the newspaper dropped sponsorship of  the club, until his death in 1962. Hank Bennett was not its first SWBC editor, but I look at him as one of the definitive SWBC column editors  

(more later on Hank.) 

 

The National Radio Club, one of three survivors of a list of 61 radio clubs that were in operation in the late '20s and '30s, following in  the footsteps of the NNRC. The other two surviving clubs are in New Zealand. NRC's 50th Anniversary publication lists club founder Joe  Becker, J.B. "Pat" Reilley and Ray B. Edge as the legendary backbone  of the club. Ernie Cooper, whom I add to the list, was also a club member in the '30s and the long-time editor of the club's main  bulletin section, as well as being an excellent DX'er. 

 

White's Radio Log ... founded by Charles DeWitt White, whose first Log  Book, "The Rhode Island Radio Call Book," was published in 1924,  according to a history written by Don Jensen for Volume 1, Number 1 of  the resurrected White's Radio Log sometime after 1981, when  Communications World magazine died. It probably attracted more people to DX'ing over a protracted period in the early days of broadcasting.  A place needs to be found, too, somewhere on our list for Vane A.  Jones, of Indianapolis, who followed in White's footsteps. 

 

Carroll Weyrich, NNRC's BCB editor, who typed an annual listing of MW  broadcast band stations from 1950 to 1959 (and was my inspiration when  I typed the first NRC Log in 1968.) 

 

Veteran SWBC DX'ers who reported to Ken Boord's ISW column in Radio &  TV News, and were role models for fellows like Don Jensen and Gary  Dexter in the early '50s. Names that come to my mind include August  Balbi of California, Grady Ferguson of North Carolina, George Cox of  Delaware, Paul Karagianis of Pennsylvania and Cyprus and Roger Legge  of Virginia, who was a DX'er who became a Voice of America employee  before one of my contemporaries, Dan Ferguson. These DX'ers  contributed to a carbon-copied round-robin newsletter that Ken made  available to me in 1958 when I edited an SWBC column for the Universal  Radio DX Club. 

 

The World Radio Handbook, first published in 1949 (perhaps earlier),  and its founder [O. Lund Johansson], whose name slips my mind, though  I do remember the name and address of the North American agent from  whom I purchased my first WRH, Ben E. Wilbur, 32 Whittlesey Avenue,  East Orange, New Jersey. 

 

Arthur T. Cushen of New Zealand, long-time DX'er, information sharer  and hobby historian. 

 

I do not recall, when I was breaking into the hobby, that there were  niche business firms such as Bob Grove's Grove Enterprises and Fred  Osterman's Universal Radio, available to us DX'ers. 

 
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