A memorial service and reception honoring the late Byron St. Clair, who passed away May 20 following a bout with brain cancer, has been scheduled for Saturday, June 23.
Sadly, the service and reception to follow will also pay tribute to St. Clair’s wife of 71 years, Julie. Mrs. St. Clair passed away just days after her husband.
The memorial service is scheduled for 1:30pm Mountain Time on June 23 at Arvada Presbyterian Church, 5592 Independence St., Arvada, CO 80002.
A reception will follow at 3pm Mountain Time at the Arvada Center for the Performing Arts, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd., Arvada, Co. 80003.
St. Clair is remembered as the “Father of Translators and LPTV and Low Power FM” for his efforts to establish additional broadcast services to people who were underserved in high-terrain communities across the Western U.S. mountainous.
These efforts created the translator, and the National Translator Association notes that — in large thanks to Dr. St. Clair — more than 4,000 low-power stations exist today.
“Byron was a friend and mentor to all, a man of immense intellect, wisdom, ethics, kind-ness and vision,” said NTA President John Terrill. ”There is not a soul among us whom Byron has not mentored; all have been made better by his friendship, teaching and spirit.”
St. Clair was President Emeritus of the NTA, after serving 19 years as its President. Professionally, St. Clair was Director of Research and Development for Adler Electronics, and the founder and president of EMCEE, a manufacturer and installer of TV translators.
This was in the 1960s, before his 1967 move to Colorado. Once there, he founded and served as President of Arvada-based Television Technology Corp., which became Larcan-TTC Inc. During his three decades TTC the company became the best-known supplier of TV translators in the Mountain West.
In 1978 he became an informal advisor to the FCC Low Power Television Task Force, which was developing rules to enable TV translators to originate programs from any suitable source. The FCC adopted rules for low power television in 1982.
In 2016 the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, the world’s largest technical professional organization, recognized Dr. St. Clair with its Jules Cohen Award for Lifetime Achievement (shown in the photo above).
He was a member of the National High Definition Television Subcommittees, Systems Subcommittee Working Party to Field Test Task Force, Board Member, Advanced Television Broadcast Alliance., and the Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers.
St. Clair’s comments on rulemaking at the FCC have helped establish the technical standards in use today; He helped write some of the NAB Engineering Handbook.
In lieu of flowers contributions can be made to AFCCE – Association of Federal Communications Engineers for the Byron W. St. Clair Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 19333, Washington, D.C. 20036-0333, or the George Stevens Academy, 23 Union Street, Blue Hill, ME 04614, in the name of Julie L. St. Clair.
