Jim ran the sound control which he had done in radio anyway, and picked up the video portion as he went along. "There were some new types of equipment that I wasn't used to at first," he admits. But he learned quickly, because he has done both control and transmitter work for WHBF since 1937.

Jim started in amateur radio as a hobby, ventured into radio engineering because he thought it offered "big money ... all those glorious things you read about." For 2 years he attended the Valpariso Technical Institute, then got a job as a ship radio operator, first on the Frank Billings freighter on the Great Lakes, then on the Oritani out of New Orleans. As a radio-telegraph operator he communicated in morse code with other ships and shore stations.

But he found that you "spend so much time going there, and so little time staying there" that he decided to come home to Davenport and work as a radio engineer. He already had his engineer's license from the FCC.

He finds that he likes television engineering better than radio because "it's more interesting. Here you work with a group of fellows, where with radio you work by yourself. And there's more going on -- more actually happening. In addition to the sound, the picture is going all the time, and you have to be on your toes to keep things going."

Jim's working the night shift now, from 4:00 p.m. to midnight. A quiet, graying fellow with and air of maturity, Jim admits it's "awfully hard to get along with some directors, especially when they think they're so big and their title goes to their head. When a director is sincere, we do everything we can to really help him. In fact, sometimes we help the director by not doing what he says if we know it's wrong."

He tells about the director who just started at WHBF-TV and was pretty much on edge. In his state of nervousness, he gave an order to "Kill It!" The film was running, the announcer talking, but everything stopped dead. Panic stricken, the director realized he had given the wrong direction. Since then, the engineers try to work with the directors.

A multitude of hobbies keep Jim busy away from work. he has an amateur radio station at home with which he communicates with other "ham" stations. It's licensed, but Jim attests "it's just for personal pleasure." He likes photography, fishing, hunting ... bowling ("I just go along") and woodwork.

We work so much with our minds up here," he says, "you enjoy doing things that are more or less different types."

Jim is certain television won't force radio out of business, "but it will take the place of some radio programs. It sure has made a hit with the people who have it."