Ohio Section July Meeting at WCMH Television Plant in Columbus

Our July 26th, 2024 section meeting was combined with the Central Ohio Society of Broadcast Engineers Chapter 52, and held at the WCMH Television Plant in Columbus.Our meeting host for the evening was Andy Mika, Chief Engineer.The theme of Andy's presentation centered around the TV Station's 75 year history celebration going on now.

Our members & guests were very impressed with seeing a comprehensive table layout of various archival TV industry trade papers, local newspaper feature articles/announcements, historic photos of the tower construction, and a variety of technical manuals and program logs, etc. beginning with the first station sign on during April 1949, and continue all of the way to more recent years. They included theit many TV broadcast enhancing firsts as a service to the Columbus TV market! Those included the first ALL ELECTRONIC COMPATIBLE COLOR TV broadcasts to the Columbus TV market starting on January 1st, 1954 with the NBC-TV broadcast of The Tournament of Roses Parade live from Pasadena California. Another such station engineering milestone occurred on July 16th, 1985 with the first broadcast of MTS compatible Stereo audio live from the NBC TV Network's coverage of the Major League Baseball All Star Game, and soon after their launching of local origination broadcast stereo programming of various local programs such as their studio newscasts through the day and night. Andy also went over several more recent years of pioneering broadcasts including the annual Red, White, and Boom" live mobile telecasts of the fabulous annual July 3rd fireworks exhibition in downtown Columbus. It's one of the finest and well attended in the Midwest! Andy's presentation concluded with a comprehensive walking tour of the WCMH TV broadcast plant complex including their original broadcast tower still located in their back yard since 1949. Their actual transmission facilities were eventually relocated down the street to a Candelabra type tower arrangement, some years later.

A very lively series of questions and answers took place during the meeting, which was very well received by the various members/guests in attendance!

Photos above left to right: WCMH Television 75 Year Anniversary photo display table, historical photos, and celebration photo displays.