Roger’s Remembrances

In high school we had a choice between “college-preparatory” courses and whatever the otherwas called. There was no question but that I was college bound, so I took the college-preparatory route. This required two years of a foreign language. The choices included Spanish and Latin (and maybe French). Brother Bob had taken Spanish, but Mom suggested I take Latin as a better base for English.

I don’t remember when nor why it was that I decided on K-State at Manhattan over K.U. at Lawrence. There may have been a seed that sub-consciously germinated when Bo McMillin, head football coach of Kansas State Agricultural College, spoke at a Father-Son banquet at First Presby Church in Hutch. I was somewhere near 5th or 6th grade at the time. Dad had gone only one year to K.U., and there was no pull there. My best guess is that tuition was less.

Room and Board
Bob Remington, who was a year ahead of me, had gone to K-State, was losing his room mate by graduation, and so asked me to room with him. We roomed and boarded at 1418 Fairchild Street, a two-story house with rented rooms on the second floor and in the basement, each room with two guys. Room and Board for a month came to the astronomical sum of about $35! The landlady, Mrs. Cousins, and her hard-of-hearing husband had the first floor. We ate family style at two tables in the dining room. Mrs. Cousins served three meals every day except Sunday, which was just breakfast and noon. Some of the guys complained about the food, but I thought they were being overly critical.

My first year Bob and I had one of the upstairs rooms. The second year we moved to a basement room. After Bob Remington graduated, I finished out with Bob Deatz (in photo with Roger) as room mate. Both Bobs were good room mates.

Academics
My junior college grades were high enough, coupled with fairly easy courses my first year at K-State, so that I was invited to join a couple of engineering groups which required above-average grades for membership. I was president of Steel Ring my last year at K-State.

Subjects studied included D.C. Machines, A.C. Circuits, A.C. Machines, Surveying, Radio, Telephony, Strength of Materials, Electrical Measurements, Forging (metal, not checks!), Illuminating Engineering, Metals and Alloys, Applied Mechanics, Mechanisms, Machine Design, and Shop. I doubt if any of them are on today’s hi-tech curriculum. Several of them were to give us some “practical” hands-on knowledge. Years later in Anthony, Brother Bob told me the best chisel he ever had was one I made in forging. The heat treatment turned out just right — more from luck than skill.

In all my schooling I can remember flunking only one course — Metals and Alloys the first time I took it. The text book, the Mechanical Engineer’s Handbook, cost $10; and I didn’t want to pay all that much for a book in the wrong field. Without a text book, I had a hard time absorbing enough in just the class room. I bought one the second time around.

One of my best profs was J.H.Robert, from whom I had Applied Mechanics. I can recall the first day of class. He cupped the fingers of each hand, pulled each hand against the other, and asked, “What is the English of this?”. There were several wrong guesses. Then I said, “The right hand is pulling against the left hand.” His “Very good!” made me feel good. I suppose he went on to say that you need to grasp the “English” of a problem before you set out to solve it.

Professor Robert could calculate problems in his head with amazing accuracy. Many calculations involved three or four terms in the numerator and two or three in the denominator. I have seen him look at the blackboard figures, cock his head to one side for a few seconds, then write down the answer. Several more seconds after that those who ran it out on their slide rule found he was correct to at least the first two places! He seldom missed. He said he just “ran his slide rule” in his head. Contrary to most other profs his blackboard lecture notes were absolutely legible and NEAT!

Other professors of note were R.G. Kloeffler (Department Head), O.D. Hunt, Russell Kirchner, Harner Selvidge, and Joe Ward. Ward was just a kid. At an April 1991 reunion of the EE Class of 1941, I enjoyed seeing and visiting with both Ward and Hunt.

Public Address Systems
My first year Bob Remington had a public address system which he rented to groups for dance music. The main agreement was with the YM/YW group, which had a “dime dance” every Saturday night in Recreation Hall in Anderson. The YM/YW folks had some sort of an agreement with ASCAP (American Society of Composers and Publishers) that it was ok to be playing their records at this non-profit event.

There was enough additional business from frats and sororities who had Saturday evening social events that Bob suggested I buy a system also, which I did (from Allied Radio in Chicago). Many weekends he and I both had a job. The rates were about $3 the first hour and $1 for each additional hour. By the middle of the year I had just about gotten back the cost of the amplifier.

When Bob left, I bought his equipment and had two systems available. The main asset was a big four-sided exponential horn/speaker which was hung overhead in the center of Recreation Hall for the dime dances. The music was distributed very nicely to all corners of Rec Hall. As a consequence, I sort of automatically inherited the dime dance jobs. However, I had to store the exponential horn elsewhere. It was very bulky — about six feet square and 18″ high. There was just room enough in the garage stall I rented just down the street from 1418 to hold both the horn and Priscilla (the Model A touring). I made a rack on Priscilla to transport the horn. Worked very nicely.

The Y dime dances were quite popular. Rec Hall was comfortably filled with perhaps 200 kids. It was very common for both guys and gals to come without a date. Several times during the evening I was supposed to have some sort of “mixer” and got reasonably adept at being a “social director”. People would come into the room where I had the turn table and make requests. I had made a record case so that I could quickly find the record — if I had it. A portion of income went to buy new records and keep up with the latest stuff. Records were 78 rpm and cost about 35 cents.

I didn’t get rich at it, but the PA jobs contributed substantially to my college education. One summer in Hutch I ran the PA system for the outdoor Sunday evening services in the vacant lot just north of the Baptist Church. I don’t remember who I sold the equipment to when it came time to leave K-State.

Radio Station KSAC
The college had a broadcast radio station which shared (and still does) the frequency with WIBW in Topeka. It was used to disseminate “extension-type” information to the agricultural community of Kansas. It also gave some hands-on experience to English majors. It had “air time” during the morning and again at noon. On a few occasions, a football game (probably against arch-rival KU) would be broadcast.

The station was located in the west end of the top floor of Nichols, the gymnasium. Two large towers supported a wire-cage type transmitting antenna. The transmitter was a Western Electric of 1920s vintage, with some modernization of microphones and power supply. The original 2 KV motor-generators (two in series for plate supply) had been replaced with a college-built rectifier supply. I do not know when KSAC first went on the air.

Old Nichols burned several years ago, leaving only the exterior walls intact. It was rebuilt as class and office space, which I walked through in 1991. I forgot to ask where the KSAC equipment is now located. The towers are still there, without the antenna.

Ray Meisenheimer was Chief Engineer, and suggested I get a Radio Telephone Operator’s First Class license so I could help him operate the transmitter. He was about to lose one of his engineers to graduation. I jumped at the chance, got me an exam book to study and started boning up.

So in the spring of 1939 (the second semester of my first K-State year) I hitch hiked to Kansas City to take the examination. People were just becoming leery of hitch hikers, but if you had a college sticker on your suitcase, your chances were supposed to be improved. It worked quite well. It’s the only hitch hiking I ever did.

I don’t remember where I stayed in K.C., but I did pass the test and got my “commercial” ticket a few weeks later. I hitched via Lawrence on the way back and have a very faint recollection of staying with Tom O’Donnell in his frat house at KU.

So my second and third years at K-State I was one of three engineers operating the transmitter. Louis Rayburn (whom I talked with at the 1991 reunion) was the other engineer besides Ray Meisenheimer. Several minutes before scheduled air time you turned on the transmitter heaters, the water pump, turned on the monitor receiver to listen to WIBW, asked Jim Chapman (head announcer, in photo) if anything is different than usual, checked microphone and other gain controls. Then when WIBW signed off, you quickly turned on the main power to the transmitter, checked that it was putting out, started the sign-on music (if used), adjusted audio level, rechecked transmitter, and got readyto turn down the music at the signal from Jim Chapman, punch his mike ON, and signal him accordingly. You then more leisurely took a closer look at the transmitter meters, adjusted power if necessary, and made entries into the technical log. Ain’t this fun?

The only technical failure I was involved in occurred during a football broadcast. Ray Meisenheimer was handling the remote location in Memorial Stadium, and I was running the transmitter. (In photo, Lou Rayburn at the controls.) Everything started out just fine, when all of the sudden the audio from Memorial Stadium quit!! I quickly checked that all plugs were ok, and then decided I better crank up some march music. (We did not have a mike for the engineer to say anything about technical difficulties.) Ray ended up getting a stand-by remote unit, and we got the game back on the air after a delay.

On Saturday nights late when WIBW had left the air, the frequency could be used for FCC-approved technical tests. Ray got approval for making some “negative feedback” tests for reducing audio distortion. I knew generally what Ray was up to but helped more with moral than technical support. That occasion was where I picked up the expression “If a little bit (of feedback) is good, more oughta be better.” It was the wee hours before we finally quit. I think Ray used the info gained for a paper he was writing.

Other Items with Ray M.
The Senior engineers went on an “inspection trip” (which see below) the fall of each year. Also, the senior engineers were responsible for lighting the “K” letter on the hill opposite downtown Manhattan at Homecoming weekend. In the fall of 1939 these two things coincided, so there were not many senior engineers left in town to handle the wiring of the lights. Ray Meisenheimer and I were both “seniors”, but would not have sufficient hours to graduate the next spring. We were about the only guys left to do the lighting job.

Ray knew his way around the campus to come up with the necessary wire, pliers, and tape. The lights were permanently installed, but needed the wiring from pole to pole and switch box. So one afternoon of Homecoming week we loaded up Priscilla with the necessary stuff and went over to the hill southeast of Manhattan.

Ray was the boss and I helped. We got the job done, and it was a nice feeling to see those lighted letters in the evenings of Homecoming. I don’t remember who was responsible for going over and turning them on.

One week end Ray invited me to his home in Hiawatha, about 80 miles from Manhattan. So late Saturday evening (probably after Dime Dance chores) Ray and I drove in Priscilla to Hiawatha. We were both so sleepy we sang(?) at the top of our voices to stay awake. It was one of the few “silly” things we ever did. Somewhere along the line Ray and I got to calling each other “Ghormleypuss” and Meisenheimerpuss”. I don’t remember how it got started. (That was the other silly thing we did.)

A few weeks prior to the 50th EE reunion this year Ray called to encourage me to be sure to attend. When I came on the phone, he greeted me with “Ghormleypuss?”. The bells didn’t jingle quite soon enough, and it was a few moments before I realized that it was Ray. He and his wife Alice had visited Mary and me in Lincoln in the ’60s or ’70s (?), so he wasn’t sure I was still alive. As it worked out, Ray had major conflicts at the last moment and was not at the reunion — a big disappointment for me.

When I got back to Lincoln, I called to ask about his welfare. During the conversation I asked if he remembered that trip to Hiawatha. Right off he said, “In Priscilla!”! What a memory! Ray had been a very enriching part of life at K-State.

Boosting the Bass — from Record to Ear
The PA setup for the Y Dime Dances as I inherited it had very poor bass response. It was a far cry from what students were hearing on the juke boxes. No one was complaining, but I figured I should do something to get better response to the string bass notes of the dance records. So the next summer I built an amplifier with a special bass-boosting stage. I had also seen an article about using a “folded exponential horn” to get deep bass response out of an ordinary 8″ loud speaker. I built it, complete with pictures at every stage of construction. And man! it sure did the job! I took the new amplifier and folded horn to school, and used the folded horn to soup up the basses missing from the center speaker.

During that year Professor Kloeffler approached me about submitting a “paper” to the AIEE (American Institute of Electrical Engineers) for a conference to be held down in Lubbock, Texas, possibly using my “folded horn” as a subject. Dr. Selvidge (a radio type) helped me with some theory on recording, and I was able to get some microscope type pictures of the grooves in a record for low and high audio frequencies. So the “paper” became “Boosting the Bass, From Record to Ear”. (There must be a copy around someplace.)

The horn (a box about 3′ x 2′ x 4′) was duly shipped to Lubbock. Kloeffler made the arrangements with the Lubbock folks to have other required props available. We drove to Lubbock in (I think) Professor O.D.Hunt’s car — “we” being from the left in the photo: Bob Washburn, yours truly, Gerald Way, Hunt, and Dick Allen. For the presentation I had mounted a little 8″ speaker on hinges so it could be placed in the normal playing position or swung away from the unit. I had chosen a record with good bass notes, so with the speaker in normal position we heard that bass booming away. When the speaker was swung away from the unit, the bass disappeared. Very impressive.

The first face I recognized at my recent EE 50th was O.D. Hunt getting ready to enter the Holidome. I hailed him from about 30′ off and introduced myself. He right away mentioned our trip to Texas — over 50 years before! Oh yes — out of 5 or 6(?) papers presented at Lubbock, I got third place.

The senior engineers went on our inspection trip the fall of 1940. This included a tour of companies that we would be likely to get offers from prior to graduation. Most of these were in and around Chicago. One of them was Automatic Electric Company on west Van Buren Street, where I eventually worked. I was not interested in the “power” end of electrical engineering. We also visited the Long Lines operation in St.Louis. At the time I thought I would really like to get into the Bell System. But it didn’t work out that way — probably for the better.

Getting a Job
I had enough hours to graduate in January, 1941, but decided to stay another semester and take some “broadening” courses (like Accounting and Economics). Also, Professor Kloeffler had offered me a job instructing a Measurements lab if I was interested. So I set my sights on a May commencement.

I did go to Kansas City for an interview with Southwestern Bell. There was another candidate who got the job. It was a dark moment when I opened the letter which started out “We regret to inform you etc. etc. but thanks for the try.” That note may be around some place. I think I was not supposed to work for Ma Bell.

In the spring of 1941 the war in Europe was really heating up, and job offers for engineers were very plentiful. Manufacturers offered a job to nearly anyone whose grades were any good at all. Some of the better students had offers from 3 or 4 companies. I had my eyes set toward the telephone industry, so was satisfied when I got an offer from Automatic Electric in Chicago at $135 per month to start. That was about the going rate. RCA and Libby (sp?) Owens glass were offering more to some of the guys. I accepted the A.E. offer.

After a few more weeks of classes and tieing down loose ends I packed up Priscilla (photo with Bob Hammond, Don King, Ray Meisenheimer) and headed away from 1418 Fairchild as living quarters for the final time. K-State days were over. They had been good years.

(END of Kansas State)