Tale #17

A scientist named C. Francis Jenkins of Washington, D.C. experimented with a crude mechanical television scanner in the mid and late 1920s. His work predated unveiling of the first electronic system by nearly two decades. In 1927 I attempted to build a copy of his machine from plans in Popular Mechanics Magazine. I wasn't 100 percent successful, but I did see changing light patterns in the tiny viewing aperture. From the springboard of teenage video experiments, I evolved years later into a television broadcast executive. The intervening time span carried me through a broad range of AM and FM broadcasting experience before commercial television became a reality.

At the nadir of the Great Depression in 1933 I found employment with WRVA, Richmond, Virginia. During those years before the Second World War I was handed such diverse assignments as transmitter operator, master control operator, transmitter maintenance technician and field technician. Soon after Pearl Harbor the U.S.Army marched me off to the Signal Corps School at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. For nearly two years I was a student in technical and engineering classes.

When I shipped overseas, it was to General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific Area, based at the time in Brisbane, Australia. It was the headquarters of fabled General Douglas MacArthur. I came into the organization at a time the Chief Signal Officer was gathering a group of former broadcast technicians and engineers who were to create a high power shortwave broadcast station within a ship. The proposed mission was to open a radio channel for the exclusive use of broadcast network war correspondents. The concept was to use the ship as a roving shortwave news platform during combat operations against Japan. The station would have sufficient power to be reliably heard on the U.S. West Coast.

I was the lieutenant, a veteran broadcaster, who was directed to develop plans for the 10 kilowatt station, which was to be built within a 55-year-old former Coast Guard vessel. It required a lot of SignalCorps imagination and ingenuity, plus a generous amount of ship construction know-how that came from people at a Sydney shipyard. That and more than a ton of radio apparatus obtained through the Australian government and the American wartime Lend Lease Program. The U.S. Army transport Apache radio conversion job was performed at the Sydney shipyard in mid-1944. We sailed north to New Guinea in time to join theinvasion fleet that would soon attack the Japanese held PhilippineIslands.

Radio broadcasting history was made on the afternoon of October 20, 1944 at a beach on Leyte Island in the Philippines. General MacArthur picked up a microphone and announced to the world through the Apache transmitter, "I have returned...." The little ship became the darling of news reporters covering the Pacific war. In the months ahead a steady stream of traffic flowed from our station to the world. At war's end in 1945 the Apache was in Tokyo harbor when Japan surrendered to Allied forces commanded by General MacArthur. Its transmitter was silent, however. American troops now controlled Radio Tokyo and news of the surrender ceremony on the U.S.S. Missouri was relayed through the defeated enemy's powerful shortwave station.

The end of the war brought personal rewards. When I took military leave at WRVA in early 1942 I was an obscure junior technician. I reported for reemployment in December 1945 and was soon elevated to manager of the newly created Research and Development Division. Ahead were new challenges in untried FM and television. I prepared plans and directed the construction of company owned FM stations WRVB and WRVC in Richmond and Norfolk respectively. Both were on the air by 1947.

Attention then turned to TV. Unfortunately, WRVA owners were too late in applying for a construction permit and were trapped in the channel allocation freeze that lasted until 1950. Then came years of further delay while five applicants fought for the three VHF channels that were assigned to the Richmond metro market.

A victorious WRVA-TV signed on in late April, 1955. By then two other stations were already on the air and had established a solid hold on the infant television market. The newest kid on the block had to struggle for years before gaining its fair share of viewers. In that period tv fans were confused by Richmond stations that frequently changed network affiliation. WTVR had the pick of all three networks when it was the only station in town. WRVA-TV signed on as a CBS affiliate. The romance lasted only two years. Practically zero growth led CBS to decline to renew the affiliation contract. It went to WTVR.

The owners of WRVA-TV authorized us to upgrade first generation technical facilities and add the latest marvels of technology as they became available.

My position grew as the station grew. I was named chief engineer the day the construction permit was granted in 1955. In 1962 I was promoted to vice president, engineering. But comfortable positions usually don't last forever. Founders of the radio and TV stations were two old Richmond families who had made a fortune in tobacco. Heirs showed little interest in staying in tobacco or broadcasting. All properties, cigarettes, radio and TV were put up for sale. The purchaser of the TV station was the Jefferson-Pilot Broadcasting Corporation, based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Station management had struggled for years to maintain the level of growth expected by owners. Under the guidance of new ownership the bottom line improved dramatically. Aging technical equipment was replaced - transmitter, cameras, antenna, videotape machines and other broadcasting apparatus. Motion picture film was phased out completely, as was studio commercial production. Future growth would be aimed toward making WWBT (new call sign of ex-WRVA-TV) the best news facility in the state.

Sadly, my own time was running out. By 1978 I had been with the radio and tv stations for 45 years. I was 65 and it was time to kiss the girls goodbye. It had been a good life. I joined WRVA when the industry itself was only eleven years old. I was part of a constantly expanding glamour business during the period from simple crystal radio sets to the dawn of the satellite age.

Sanford T. Terry, retired
st.terry@worldnet.att.net