John Schneider calls himself The Radio Historian; Radio World readers have enjoyed his series of recurring photo-based articles.
Now he’s out with a calendar that broadcast technology geeks will love, featuring wonderful pix of historic radio broadcast transmitters and people who worked around them.
Interestingly, he chose to colorize these photos, all of which originally were black and white. That sounds at first like a bad idea — I’m normally for historical veracity when publishing historical material — yet the colorization process works here, allowing us to engage more with the people and equipment shown. This makes it possible for us to feel like we’re standing with Walter F. Myers at WJJD in Chicago as he takes meter readings from his new RCA BTA-50F transmitter in 1947, or sitting with engineer Edwin Boyes at the control desk of WWJ(AM/FM) in 1963 in front of the big Western Electric and RCA transmitters.
As a bonus, the last page of the calendar provides background about the stations shown, which include legendary names like KIRO, WEAF, KSFO and WJZ. For each month, Schneider provides not only a historical thumbnail about the station, but a separate short history of the transmitter, which RW tech readers will particularly appreciate.
Find it for $21.95 on eBay by searching “radio broadcasting history calendar,” or email Schneider at [email protected].
