A. James Ebel
1913-1998

Biographical Information:

From 1937 to 1946, A. James Ebel worked as the chief engineer for station WILL at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. There, he designed the station's first FM transmitter while he was the executive secretary of the National Association of Educational Broadcasters. Ebel then taught as an assistant professor of Engineering, and worked for a variety of stations--WMBD (Peoria), KOLN-TV/KGIN-TV (Nebraska), WDZ (Tuscola-Decatur), and KMEG-TV (Iowa). During the sixties, his career focused more on satellite transmission. In 1967, he chaired the CBS Affiliates Satellite Transmission Committee, which sought to achieve satellite interconnection between networks and affiliates for improved cost-efficiency and picture quality. Then, in 1970, he headed a similar committee that included all three networks. In addition, Ebel participated as a delegate to three World Administrative Radio Conferences in Geneva, Switzerland in 1971, 1977 and 1988. In 1986, he worked on protection of encryption of network programs fed to a station by means of fixed service satellites and chaired the New Technology Committee for the ABC, CBS, and NBC Network Affiliates. Currently, Ebel has turned his energies again to public broadcasting, participating on the committee working on the development of the U. S. System of HDTV (High Density Television) as a representative of the Nebraska ETV Commission.

A. James Ebel died on January 31, 1998.

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