Dooley, Eddie, 1905-1982

Edwin B. Dooley (1930-1998), a veteran Cincinnati broadcast engineer, was considered an authority on radio history. He studied electrical engineering, earning a degree in Communications from the University of Cincinnati, and spent the bulk of his active career as an engineer at WLW radio and WLWT television beginning in the 1950s. He joined the Advanced Color Television Design Group at AVCO Manufacturing Corporation, helping convert the WLW television stations to color format, and served as chief engineer at WLWT-TV from 1961 until he retired in 1987. He then did consulting work for Broadcast Investment Analysts. Dooley was a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Ohio and held an FCC Radio Telephone General Class Commercial License. He was also a member of the Engineering Society of Cincinnati and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, as well as a director of the Gray History of Wireless Museum. Mr. Dooley was a frequent speaker on radio history throughout his life, and gave presentations about the history of early radio broadcasting and WLW to the National Radio Club in 1962, and to the Cincinnati Section of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, Inc. in 1995. He helped develop WMKV, the only FM station in the country licensed to a retirement community, and helped compile a massive big band era music library for the station. He was active in the American Theater Organ Society, and based on his own record collection, he created a radio show about theater pipe organ performances, which WMKV continued to air after his death.

As a collector and advocate of broadcast history, Ed Dooley is particularly important to WLW's legacy because the station did not maintain a collection of its own recordings. Dooley saved thousands of airchecks, transcription discs, field recordings and radio equipment throughout his career at WLW, often climbing into the station's dumpster to rescue them.

WLW was created by Powel Crosley, Jr. in 1922. Crosley, who entered the field of broadcasting after building a radio for his son, soon became a forerunner in the business of radio and equipment production. His dedication to manufacturing affordable radios with assembly-line production earned him the nickname "The Henry Ford of Radio." Over the next two decades, Crosley continually expanded WLW's programming and transmitter size, and by 1934 "The Nation's Station" was broadcasting at 500,000 watts, reaching as far as Australia on clear nights.

WLW became the target of numerous complaints from other radio stations. The first such complaint came from CFRB in Toronto, which eventually led to an FCC intervention requiring WLW to reduce the station's nightly power to 50,000 watts. Crosley engineers began designing and installing a suppressor antenna that eliminated the interference without reducing WLW's signal strength, and the FCC approved the station's return to normal operation in 1935.

In 1936, however, when other radio stations began to apply to the FCC for super-power operation, the U.S. Senate intervened with a resolution stating that any radio station broadcasting at more than 50,000 watts was against public interest. In 1938, WOR in New Jersey sued WLW for allegedly interfering with their signal. By 1939, WLW was only allowed to broadcast experimentally at 500,000 watts before dawn, and by 1943, the station was forced to reduce its power to 50,000 watts twenty four hours a day.

Although WLW continued to broadcast superior programs for the next several decades, Crosley lost interest in broadcasting after losing his battle with the FCC. He turned his attention to manufacturing cars and appliances, and his ownership of the Cincinnati Reds. Crosley eventually sold his broadcast stations to the Aviation Corporation (AVCO) in 1945.

SOURCES:

From the guide to the Edwin B. Dooley Collection, 1935-1960, 1940s-1950s, (Library of American Broadcasting)