R.I.P. Cincinnati Broadcasting Pioneer Clyde Haehnle

Clyde Haehnle

The eyes of broadcast engineer Clyde Haehnle always glowed like an old radio tube when he talked about the Voice of America complex on Tylersville Road or WLW-AM's unprecedented 500,000-watt transmitter under WLW's tower down the road, according to media writer John Kiesewetter at wvxu.org.

Haehnle, who died Sunday at age 95, was a walking history text about Cincinnati's rich Crosley Broadcasting innovations. He helped build some of them, and later in his career oversaw the sale and liquidations of the Crosley/AVCO Broadcasting properties, including WLWT-TV and WLW-AM.

As vice president of engineering at Crosley/AVCO, he was responsible for bringing the first color TV broadcasts to Cincinnati in the 1950s. He also was the broker who helped form Jacor Communications (now part of iHeartMedia), and worked on the committee which planned and built the Crosley Telecommunications Center, 1223 Central Parkway, home of WCET-TV (Channel 48) and Cincinnati Public Radio's WVXU-FM and WGUC-FM.

After graduating from Withrow High School, he studied electrical engineering at the University of Cincinnati and was a co-op at the Crosley Corporation. His first assignment was at the WLW-AM transmitter on Tylersville Road in Mason, the nation's most powerful radio station at that time. The government gave Crosley "super power" to experiment with broadcasting 500,000 watts from 1934 to 1943.

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