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



Thanks John - this is a great start. Maybe I can find some time to 
start compiling some of this information, then we can ask folks for 
their personal anecdotes, photos, etc. This could be a fun project and 
a useful history lesson. I'll keep you posted.

Jim

----- Original Message -----
From: John Callarman <JohnCallarman@xxxxxxx>
Date: Friday, March 9, 2007 11:33 am
Subject: [IRCA] Fw:  (was: New MW QSL) Ernest R. Cooper? Part 3
To: IRCA <IRCA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

> 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 th!
> e 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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