[NJARC] Jersey inventors join Hall of Fame: Blonder & Tongue

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 20:51:07 -0500

Thanks for the link, John.  I was too lazy to dig it up
myself.  Actually, I wasn't sure the SL was on line.

Al

"John Dilks, K2TQN" wrote:
> 
> At 03:00 PM 2/22/2002 -0500, David R Sica wrote:
> >Check out today's Star Ledger (Feb. 22). There's a nice story on page 27
> >featuring NJARC members Ike Blonder and Ben Tongue who were inducted
> >yesterday into the
> >New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame, joining the likes of Einstein, Edison
> >and Vail as famous inventors with ties to New Jersey.
> 
> To all,
> 
> Here's the official link to the Newark Star Ledger Story.  You might want
> to print and save it.
> 
> http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1014372625142524.xml
> 
> 73' John Dilks, K2TQN
> 
> Story below incase you can't get to the link.......
> 
> Jersey inventors join Hall of Fame
> 
> Friday, February 22, 2002
> BY KEVIN COUGHLIN
> Star-Ledger Staff
> 
> Move over, Albert Einstein.
> 
> The father of relativity has been joined in the New Jersey Inventors Hall
> of Fame by the guys who gave the world Uncle Floyd.
> 
> Isaac "Ike" Blonder and Ben Tongue, who were among 13 inductees honored
> yesterday at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, are better known in
> electronics circles for antenna amplifiers and UHF converters from
> television's early days.
> 
> But for a brief spell in the late 1970s, they also dabbled as media moguls.
> As owners of WBTV-68 in West Orange, Blonder and Tongue were pioneers of
> pay TV. Viewers used a set-top box to unscramble the picture, which
> sometimes revealed a young comic, Floyd "Uncle Floyd" Vivino.
> 
> Vivino's Jersey-flavored nightclub act, replete with puppets and highway
> anthems, continues to this day.
> "There also was a lady, a belly dancer, but I don't recall her name,"
> Tongue, 77, said with a laugh from his West Orange home.
> 
> The Hall of Fame honors inventors with ties to New Jersey. Initial
> inductees in 1989 included Einstein, Thomas Edison and telegraph wizard
> Alfred Vail.
> 
> Blonder and Tongue, founders of Blonder Tongue Laboratories in Old Bridge,
> shared the spotlight last night with an eclectic mix whose creations range
> from toothpaste to the Brooklyn Bridge.
> 
> Posthumous honors went to Trenton's John Roebling, the father of twisted
> cable, who died in a construction accident at the famous bridge in 1883.
> 
> Anthony Winston of East Brunswick holds 95 patents for toothpastes,
> detergents and fungicides as a chemist for Arm & Hammer's parent company,
> Church & Dwight. Baking soda is his life. "It's an amazing material," he
> said, one that has helped him "make lives a little bit better."
> 
> Another inductee, Dave Hammond, forged a company from his experiences as a
> medic during the Vietnam War. DHL Inc. of Tinton Falls sells easy-to-use
> first aid kits to the Postal Service and Disney, among others. Color-coded
> picture cards guide users through emergency procedures.
> 
> Hammond, 52, said he was inspired by travails of his fellow Navy medics,
> who were thrown into hazardous duty young and green.
> 
> "I thought, how in God's name are people supposed to do this?" Hammond
> recounted.
> 
> The Biotechnology Council of New Jersey was cited for its promotion of the
> state's biopharmaceutical industry.
> 
> Herwig Kogelnik of Rumson helped create optical telecommunications at Bell
> Labs. At AT&T, Irwin Gerszberg of Kendall Park contributed to digital
> subscriber line technology. DSL allows high- speed Internet service over
> phone lines.
> 
> Hossein Eslambolchi, president of AT&T Labs, was recognized for systems
> that reroute phone traffic around glitches. Valerie Bell of Iselin's
> Engelhard Corp. devised cheap ways to purify natural gas that otherwise
> would be unusable.
> 
> Cheap, rechargeable batteries of lithium ion, now standard in cell phones
> and laptops, came from a trio of researchers at the former Bellcore.
> Jean-Marie Tarascon, Antoni Gozdz and Paul Warren now work for Telecordia
> Technologies Inc. of Red Bank.
> 
> Tongue said discarded radio batteries -- dry cells also used in Model T
> cars -- sparked his interest in electrical engineering at the age of 8.
> 
> "I played around with them," said Tongue, who powered a tiny motor he built
> from a 10-cent kit.
> 
> The hall of famers are commemorated by a permanent exhibit at NJIT in
> Newark. Biographies of prior inductees are online at www.njinvent.njit.edu.
> 
> Kevin Coughlin covers technology. He can be reached at
> [email protected].
> 
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-- 
Al Klase - N3FRQ
[email protected]
Flemington, NJ 08822
Web Page:  http://www.webex.net/~skywaves/home.htm