A renowned television and radio engineer who was instrumental in bringing early television to the rural Mountain West and later became a pioneer of low-power TV and FM translators has lost his battle with brain cancer.
Dr. Byron W. St. Clair passed away May 20 in Lakewood, Colo., at the age of 93. He leaves behind his wife of 71 years, Julie, and daughter Susan Hansen. He also leaves a legacy that can be tied to the FCC’s current “AM revitalization” efforts, and the fight for community-based LPFMs and LPTVs that continues today.
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.
A memorial service is planned for a date in June.
In his honor, the National Translator Association is establishing The Byron W. St. Clair Memorial Scholarship Fund with the Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers (AFC-CE) for promising undergraduate and graduate students at accredited U.S. universities and colleges interested in a career in broadcast engineering.
