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 Previous: ARRL Helps MFJ Celebrate 35 Year Anniversary |  Next: Tom Atkins, VE3CDM (SK) |
The Radio Club of America (RCA) has named ARRL Roanoke Division Director Dennis Bodson, PhD, PE, W4PWF, of Arlington, Virginia, as the recipient of the Sarnoff Citation. The award is given to recognize significant contributions to the advancement of electronic communications. Barry Goldwater, K7UGA (SK), was the first recipient of the Sarnoff Citation in 1973.
"I was shocked when I heard that I would receive the Sarnoff Citation," Bodson said. "I find it difficult to believe that I'll be on the dais with Walter Cronkite, KB2GSD." Cronkite and QST and QEX author John S. "Jack" Belrose, PhD, VE2CV, are to receive the RCA's Armstrong Medal, the RCA's foremost achievement award and named for its first recipient, Major Edwin Armstrong, at the RCA's Annual Awards Banquet and Annual Meeting and Technical Symposium on November 16 in New York City. Andy Rooney of CBS's 60 Minutes will be the keynote speaker.
Dennis Bodson, W4PWF
Bodson, who is retired -- "Retired means different things to different people. I work, but on different things," he said -- displays an energy level that hardly anyone can match, Bishop said. Bodson is retired as chief of the Technology and Standards Division of the National Communications System (NCS) in 1998. In October 2005, he became a member of the executive staff of the Institute for Defense and Homeland Security where he is director of Telecommunications and Sensor Systems. Bodson is an ARRL Life Member and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
"Fifteen years ago, I had the opportunity [to serve on the ARRL Board of Directors]. I knew the former Division Director, and he suggested, 'get involved and run for Vice Director.' I was elected to that, and when he retired, I moved up to Director. I have enjoyed it, but everything comes to a change. I still have this year and two more years, and then I'll decide whether to run for re-election," Bodson said. He also is Vice President of the Arlington (Virginia) Amateur Radio Club (AARC).
Born in Washington, DC, Bodson always wanted to be an electrical engineer. He earned a BEE in 1961 and an MEE in 1963, both from The Catholic University of America in Washington. From 1963-1966, he served as an officer in the US Air Force assigned to the National Security Agency. From 1966-1969, he was with Vitro Laboratories, Atlantic Research Corporation and the US Army Materiel Command where he was engaged in research and development and systems engineering.
In 1970, Dennis began his long career with NCS, currently an interagency group of 23 federal departments and agencies managed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). While at NCS, Bodson continued his formal education and earned a Master's in public administration in 1976 from the University of Southern California's Washington Center for Public Affairs, and completed his PhD in electrical engineering in 1985 from California Western University. In recognition of his accomplishments in federal service, in 1999 Dennis received the IEEE's Charles Proteus Steinmetz Award. According to the IEEE's Web site, the award is "presented to an individual for exceptional contributions to the development and/or advancement of standards in the field of electrical and electronics engineering."
IEEE has seen a lot of Bodson since his beginning days as a student engineer. "My major professor said, 'Become active in your professional society.' I took him at heart and did so and never regretted it," he said. After retiring from NCS, Bodson increased his IEEE involvement, and by 2000, he was chairman of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (VTS) Standards Committee, reflecting his work on standards at NCS. He was a senior editor for the VTS quarterly bulletin, News Digest, and later became its editor. "I became editor because we needed to do something, but then we got a real editor, Dr James Irvine. We went from a bulletin to a 60page magazine," he said. Bodson is a Life Fellow of IEEE, where new Fellowships are limited to no more than one-tenth of one percent of the membership per year, making elevation to the status of Fellow in IEEE a particularly high distinction.
Soon after his retirement from NCS, Bodson served as president of the IEEE Engineering Management Society (EMS). For his service to EMS, he was given the EMS Engineering Manager of the Year Award. The IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) bestowed on Bodson the IEEE-SA Distinguished Service Award in 2002. Bodson was then was elected President of VTS, where he continues on its board of governors as Junior Past President.
Bodson has written more than 60 technical articles and has published four books. He joined RCA in 1976, became a Fellow in 1981 and became an RCA Life Member in 1996.
Walter Cronkite, KB2GSD
Cronkite is best known as the anchor of the CBS Evening News from 1962-1981. He is also the voice of the ARRL video, Amateur Radio Today, Amateur Radio's public service story.
Cronkite was born in St Joseph, Missouri, in 1916. He first worked in radio as an announcer for WKY in Oklahoma City. He later worked as a sports announcer for KCMO in Kansas City, Missouri. While in Kansas City in 1937, he went to work for United Press. The news agency sent him to cover World War II, and he distinguished himself as a reporter in North Africa and Europe.
In 1950, Edward R. Murrow recruited him to work at CBS News. He anchored the network's coverage of national political party conventions beginning in 1952, and from 1953-1957, he hosted the CBS program, You Are There. On April 16, 1962, he succeeded Douglas Edwards as the anchor of the CBS Evening News and continued in that role until March 6, 1981.
After leaving the evening news broadcast, Cronkite was seen and heard occasionally as a special correspondent for CBS, CNN and NPR. From 1987 to 1992, Cronkite filled his last role for CBS News, Walter Cronkite's 20th Century, a 90 second radio segment for CBS Radio. A production company he co-founded in 1993, the Cronkite Ward Company, produced documentaries for the Discovery Channel, PBS and other networks. In 2004, he wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column that appeared in 186 newspapers.
For many years, Cronkite hosted the annual Vienna New Year's Concert on PBS and the Kennedy Center Honors.
Cronkite is the recipient of a Peabody Award, the William White Award for Journalistic Merit, an Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the George Polk Journalism Award and a Gold Medal from the International Radio and Television Society. His autobiography, A Reporter's Life, was published in 1996.
John S. "Jack" Belrose, PhD, VE2CV
Since 1981, Jack Belrose has been a technical advisor to ARRL in the areas of radio communications technology, antennas and propagation. Belrose is a life member of the Antique Wireless Association (AWA) and the Quarter Century Wireless Association (QCWA); he is a life senior member of IEEE (Antennas and Propagation Society). He has been a licensed radio amateur since 1947 currently as VE2CV (ex-VE7QH, ex-VE3BLW).
Belrose is one of RCA's most distinguished members. He received BASc and MASc degrees in electrical engineering from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC. He joined the Radio Propagation Laboratory of the Defence Research Board, in Ottawa, Ontario in 1951. He received his PhD Cantab degree from the University of Cambridge in radio physics in 1958. From 1957-1998, he was with the Communications Research Centre Canada (CRCC, formerly Defence Research Telecommunications Establishment).
When he retired, he was director of the Radio Sciences Branch. In honor of a 50 year career in radioscience, he has the status of an Emeritus Researcher at CRCC.
Belrose was deputy chairman and then chairman of the Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development's (AGARD) Electromagnetic Propagation Panel from 1979-83. He was a special rapporteur for ITU-Radiocommunications Study Group 3 concerned with LF and VLF Propagation, and in this capacity authored two major reports concerned with propagation in these frequency bands.
He is the author or co-author of more than 150 papers, articles, and technical correspondence letters written relevant to the fields of radio communications, radio science, antennas and propagation, including numerous articles for QST and QEX; author of two chapters in a Prentice-Hall book Physics of the Earth's Upper Atmosphere; author of a chapter in an IEE 1983 publication The Handbook on Antenna Design; lecturer, AGARD Lecture Series and director for four published lectures; author of five papers concerned with the history of wireless and a chapter of History of Wireless published in 2006 by John Wylie & Sons.
Banquet Information
The RCA banquet is open to members, non-members and guests. Registration is required; registration forms can be downloaded here.
The ARRL thanks RCA Fellow and ARRL Life Member Don Bishop, W0WO, for this information.
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