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Glen Clark, Developer of Audio Prism, Dies

His landmark designs spanned audio processing and RF applications

Glen Clark
Glen Clark is shown in a photo from a 2007 article in Radio World Engineering Extra.

Glen Tebendale Clark, who is perhaps best known as the designer of the revolutionary Texar Audio Prism, passed away on April 21, just six weeks after being diagnosed with liver cancer. According to a notice in the Sharon Herald, 67-year-old Clark was in hospice in New Castle PA at the time of his death.

A few years after developing the Audio Prism, in 1988, Clark sold Texar Inc. to Gentner. He then formed a new company, Glen Clark & Associates, and directed his energies to developing computer software to design complex AM directional antenna arrays. One of his first projects enabled CBS Radio to upgrade its AM facilities in Detroit to 50 kW, a feat deemed impossible using traditional design methods. Clark would later describe these arrays as “looking as if towers randomly fell from the sky and landed in the field.”

He eventually returned to audio processing, when he designed “Cobalt Blue,” a replacement for Card 5 in an Orban Optimod 8100. Blue used cutting-edge neural net technology with fuzzy logic to “learn” a station’s musical format, and dynamically adjust the audio processing.

He also wrote numerous articles for trade publications, some of the earliest, dating from the mid-1970s, comparing different AM modulation techniques. Other articles authored by Clark discussed tuning FM transmitters and audio processing. Most recently, he wrote a series for Barry Mishkind’s Broadcaster’s Desktop Reference about the dangers that broadcasters may face from EMP (electromagnetic pulses), and how they might better protect their facilities.

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