wrote in message
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I just got word that Tom Kneitel has passed away. Tom was a good
friend to anyone who loved radio in the 60's, 70's, 80's and early
90's. My bookshelf is full of books that Tom wrote on all kinds of
radio topics. He walked, talked and breathed radio. He was the
inspiration behind Popular Communication which grew out of the old CB
magazine S9.
He did a lot for radio and for those of us who love it as a hobby.

I will miss Tom Kneitel!

So will I. I never met him or talked to him, but I greatly enjoyed his
"Uncle Tom's Corner" column in _Electronics Illustrated_. Long before the
Internet arrived, sometimes the only way you could get an answer to a
radio-equipment question was to send a letter to a columnist at an
electronics magazine, wait for a few months, and HOPE your letter got
printed and answered. Tom Kneitel wrote very well and one of my all-time
favorite answers in his column concerned a ham who had found some weird type
of vacuum tube at a hamfest but could not find any technical documentation
on it at all. Kneitel solved the problem: "It's not a vacuum tube. It's a
projector bulb. Don't feel too bad, though. This one had the folks at
Westinghouse [or whoever the manufacturer was -- Matt] running in circles
for two weeks before they figured this one out."

One of my all-time favorite radio articles was one he wrote about Radio Swan
for _Electronics Illustrated_ back in the 1960s. It was a shortwave radio
station broadcasting from a tiny island in the Caribbean, but many hams
thought it was actually a cover for a CIA operation to overthrow Fidel
Castro. Was this powerful radio station really where it said it was?
Kneitel and Bob Beason, the editor of _EI_, thought it might make for a good
magazine article to try to find out. They decided to visit Swan Island, and
chartered a plane to go there. And they did. They got to take the official
tour of the entire station and island, and Radio Swan was there, all right.
Deisel generators, huge antennas, and a few dozen souls. Kneitel still
thought the CIA had something to do with it, though, and time has probably
proven him right. Radio Swan shut down very soon after _EI_ published their
article. I don't know if it ever went back on the air again, but some
research I did on the Net some months back suggests that the transmitting
equipment subsequently wound up being used in Vietnam. Swan Island is still
there, but I don't think Radio Swan is anymore. The Net has some recent
photographs of what the island looks like now.

73, Tom. DE KJ5BA
Matt J. McCullar