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News of The Order of the Iron Test Pattern

2001 Iron Test Pattern Meeting in Las Vegas


Assembling again in Las Vegas, the Order of The Iron Test Pattern will honor "technical survivors" in the television industry. Details of the party, to be held Tuesday night, April 24th in the Itelco-USA booth after the NAB exhibits close, can be found by clicking the NAB EXHIBITS tab of the home page. Be sure to read the details, RSVP as requested, and get your late pass for admission to the hall.

1999 Survivors of the Year Awards


Las Vegas, Nevada--- April 11, 2000 ----The Order of the Iron Test Pattern, an organization formed to recognize �technical survivors� in the television industry, announced winners for 1999 in an awards ceremony this evening in the Itelco booth at NAB 2000.

�It is important to note that the Order of the Iron Test Pattern honors tenacity, not technical advancement,� stated Howard McClure, Chairman of The Order of the Iron Test Pattern. �Admittedly, in some cases � like keeping a VTR running for a million hours � tenacity and technical achievement sort of go hand in hand. But our focus is really on endurance and longevity.�

Members of this august body consist of veterans who have toiled in any technical capacity in the television industry for at least 15 years. At 15 years the �Officer� rank is achieved; candidates with 25 years of service become "Commanders" with all rights and privileges of the office (virtually none); at 32 years, Commanders become eligible for promotion to "Brigadier." The next, still to be titled rank, will be added at 64 and 128 years in the industry.

For being the oldest engineer (85) still earning a living in the television industry and having done so for the longest time (55 years), Brigadier John H. Battison, PE was presented the Crusty Engineer Award. Starting in experimental television with KMBC (1945) and development work with Dr. Peter Goldmark, John has worn most of the engineer hats in the industry. After several years with ABC, he built the first TV station in Calgary Canada; purchased KAVE AM in Carlsbad NM and built KAVE TV 6; went to UK as director of engineering, Associated REdiffusion, first UK commercial station; returned to US to found the Society of Broadcast Engineers; retired as director of Engineering, Ohio State University TV and radio stations. John continues his career as a consulting engineer based in Ohio.

The Iron Desk Award went to Brigadier Joseph Barath for keeping the same position as television engineer for the Johnson Space Center Television Systems for over 34 years while being employed successively by 5 different organizations. Every time NASA changed prime contractors for management of systems which included television, Joe and his desk were hired by the new contractor. He is still working in the same job ----proving that survival has become an art form.

When Dr. Byron St. Clair earned his PHD in Physics he must have calculated how many gigawatts of power one would need to blanket the world with the maximum number of television signals carrying the maximum number of commercials. He must have concluded that low power transmitters make the most sense and after 43 years of a colorful career in low power television, he survives ---- grinning. The Rusty Doc Award went to Brigadier Byron St. Clair!

For collecting 70 ancient, broadcast television cameras, repairing, operating and storing them in his personal museum, Brigadier Chuck Pharis received the Rust Collector Award. Although it may appear that his secret to surviving 33 years in the television industry may be his hobby, Chuck has led a �serene� life as a Senior Video Engineer with ABC TV Network in Hollywood. He has worked on every type of show and spent many years with Wide World of Sports. He currently works on a Soap Opera called Port Charles and was involved with Monday night Football as Senior Video Engineer on the Panasonic 720P HDTV Truck. No pressure. That�s what does it.

Created just prior to the 1979 NAB convention the Order of the Iron Test Pattern has filled a real need for television�s technical slaves --- recognition for their contributions.

The first annual meeting during NAB 1980 honored the longest suffers of the lot and started a tradition that was scheduled to last 5 years, or forever, whichever came first. For some reason, this is the 20th anniversary of the first NAB meeting and it is presently sponsored by Itelco-USA, Inc.

Historical Awards and Records


Note: All affiliations shown below were true at the time the awards were presented. We haven't the slightest idea of where most of winners are today, but would certainly like to find out!

Survival Award 1980: Bill Kelley was with WNEW-TV, New York for 33 years and held the record for the longest time with a single TV station.

Survival Award 1980: Adron Miller was with RCA Burbank for 33 years and held the record for the longest time with a single television industry manufacturer.

Oldest Working Engineer 1981: Bill McCord, Ohio Educational Broadcasting Network Commission, won a 3 foot high hour glass for being the oldest engineer at the party who was still working full time. He was 66 then.

Iron Frog Award 1981: John Boor of EON, Seattle, got the award for job hopping. He had been with 90 stations, 77 of which went on the air (many outside the US) under his direction. Most were in the Armed Forces Network, so he really didn't have that many different paycheck writers. He won , but in today's world it'll be the number of employers that counts.

Iron Bailing Wire Trophy 1981: Given to OptiMedia Systems of Clifton, N.J. for the oldest piece of equipment still in use. Their entry was a Foto-Video Laboratories vacuum tube waveform monitor. It was purchased in 1957 from an advertising agency so they didn't really know its true age. It was serial number 111 if anyone can supply more accurate information.

Iron Tower Award (Senior Division) 1982: E. Dennis White, retired at the time, from KYTV, Springfield MO, had climbed a 290 footer when he was 72 years of age. His old team-mates at the station paid his way to Dallas to receive this award. We multiplied the height of the tower times his age squared so the existing record for the senior division is 914.9 K foot years squared.

Iron Tower Award (Jr. Division) 1982: Jack A. Olson, WWUP-TV, Cadillac, MI, when age 46 climbed an 1126 foot tower for a record of 1.23 Mega-foot years squared. We considered changing the rules to allow for cubing the age ( to make certain that Dennis won) but decided against it. This is the reason for two different awards. Age 55 is the cut-over date in case you can challenge either division..

Iron Heart Award 1982: Charlie Wilson, KDFW-TV, Dallas won it for suffering the most embarrassing physical damage in the line of duty. Broken bones or being killed did not count unless everyone laughed while it happened. He was knocked end-over-end by Drew Pearson during a Dallas Cowboy game. Charlie was working the parabolic mike on the sidelines and didn't see the play coming.

Iron Lady Award 1983: Barbara McKenna Ramaley, KOMO-TV, Seattle. Barbara won the award for being the lady engineer with the longest time in the industry. She started in television in 1953, but had been chief engineer in radio before that. Her first-class radio telephone license is dated 1946.

Iron Center Conductor Award 1983: This award was given to Caywood Cooley, consultant, for his time in the CATV industry. Caywood was the first field engineer sent to the first Jerrold CATV system in Lansford, PA. They used individual channel, apartment house amplifiers mounted on telephone poles to re-amplify the signals on their way into town.

Iron Vidicon Award 1983: F. Dan Meadows, Sierra Scientific, Mountain View, CA was given this award for being the longest user of the Vidicon tube in the closed circuit television industry.

Iron Fist Award 1983: This went to Isaac S. Blonder, Chairman of the Board, Blonder Tongue Labs, Old Bridge, NJ for being the rustiest executive officer in the industry having helmed BT since 1950.

Iron Wombat Award and the Iron Kangaroo Award 1983: These were given to engineers in the Australian chapter of the Order. I am still not sure what a Wombat might be, but it was given to the person who was farthest from his job. The Iron Kangaroo was for the engineer who was the best job hopper. It was quite a party in the 729 Club (television) in Sidney where your Marshal was feted with enough Australian beer to make it difficult to remember one's own name. If any of you 125 members in Australia can remember their names, please send them to me for the official record book.

Gold Plated Commander's Awards 1982: Pete Wood, past president of the Society of Television Engineers, accepted this award for 50 years in the industry for Harry Lubke, who started with Philo T. Farnsworth in 1929. That's a Pioneer!

Another award was given to Loyd Sigmon who started with the Boston Short Wave and Television Laboratories in 1932. He served as Executive V.P., Golden West Broadcasters, and in spite of his technical contribution is most remembered for his "SigAlerts," since Los Angeles traffic jams are named for his radio advisory innovation.

In 1986 Ed Dervishian was also made a Gold Plated Commander just before he retired from Motorola Communication and Electronics. He celebrated his 70th birthday that same year and totaled 51 years of active employment (started with scanning discs in 1935). He was Dr. Lee de Forest's personal assistant and de Forest's patent #2,452,203 was Ed's construction project with him.

And the award of awards, Albert Leon's Print Communicator award was presented in April 1988 at our ninth annual meeting during NAB. This unique statue of Sisyphus rolling a rock to the top of the hill, only to have it roll down again so that he could role it back up for eternity was a suitable award for the print media who support our industry. Al actually won the award in 1987, but had to wait until 1988 to collect it because he went so far as to have a heart transplant in order to stay in the industry. He just celebrated the 10th anniversary of his new heart, has been appointed to the esteemed rank of Sage and serves as a member of the Order of The Iron Test Pattern's Council of Sages. We'll take nominations for this award, but how do you top a heart transplant?

The Rusty VTR Award 1997: Jim Therrell and the video engineers at the National Geographic Society for keeping video tape players alive and operating for over one million hours.

Special Survivor Award  1997: Ike Blonder and Ben Tongue for 100 years of service in Television (50 years each).

Iron Anchor Award  1997: After his over 50 years of survival in television, John Klindworth sailed  his 104 foot yacht, the SeaQuell around the world.

Ironmaster Award 1997: An award for the most "Firsts" in Television was presented to Paul Yacich, for claiming more "Firsts" than any other engineer in the industry.