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November 1999 Issue
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Interview with a Leader
SCTE Charter Member Bill Karnes
By Rex Porter

Rex Porter

Bill Karnes, currently president and owner of ISC Datacom, numbers among the 79 charter members of the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers. However, he already was an industry veteran at the Society's inaugural meeting in 1969, having started in cable in the early '50s. Let's get to know him a little better.

Communications Technology: Bill, tell us a little about your younger days-before cable.

Bill Karnes: I was born in a small town south of Dallas, grew up and went to school in Dallas and graduated from Crozier Technical High

Bill Karnes

School. I got interested in radio in about my junior high school days and built crystal radio sets in my early high school days.

In high school, I took a couple of years of radio courses under a teacher named Grey Moore. Mr. Moore was a great teacher, an active ham radio operator who had done a lot of work in high frequencies. Back then, we thought that frequencies above 30 MHz (we said megacycles then) were not of much use, and Mr. Moore was one of the first to try to prove that idea wrong.

After high school, through the Air National Guard, I was able to go on temporary active duty and went through the Air Force Basic Radio School at Scott AFB in Illinois. In that school, I relearned all the AC and DC theory that we had covered in high school, plus learning a lot about military communications equipment. After that, I came back to Dallas and spent about a year and a half learning to run an offset printing press.

In 1950, the Korean conflict erupted. I was still a member of the Air National Guard. Driving home from work one evening, I turned on the car radio just in time to hear the announcer say " & and those were the Texas Air Guard units that were mobilized for active duty today."

Since you can't punch "rewind" on a car radio, I had to wait another half-hour or so 'til I got home to verify that, yes, indeed, my squadron was one of the units being called to active duty. A week later I was at Hensley Field in Dallas, wearing a khaki uniform again.

We were sent to Langley Field in Virginia so our pilots could transition from F-84 jets to F-86 planes. I applied for and was assigned to go back to school, this time to Advanced Radio School, also at Scott AFB. On graduation, I didn't have enough time remaining on the call-up period for overseas assignment, where my original Guard wing had been sent, so I was sent to a tow-target squadron based at Sewart AFB near Nashville, Tenn.

My job was to take care of the radios in the squadron airplanes. Since the planes were used to pull targets across the sky for anti-aircraft gunners to shoot at, I'm just as glad I wasn't a member of the flight crews.

In 1952, the military decided they didn't need us any longer, so I was returned to National Guard status. I took a job with AT&T Long-Lines division, testing long distance circuits. One day the union called a nationwide strike over issues that I thought were stupid, so I went out and found a job repairing TV sets and installing antennas. When the strike ended, I didn't bother to go back and stayed in TV service for the next two or three years.

One day, I heard about a job with Collins Radio Co. I applied for the job, passed the tests and signed on as a military field service engineer. The main difference in those days between field service engineers and field service technicians was that engineers got leather briefcases, and technicians got vinyl. Also, when we left work each day, technicians had to open their briefcases for inspection by security, but engineers didn't-some government rule.

Our job was to interface with the various military branches and help them use Collins radio gear. Collins lost some contracts with the government, and we had nothing to do but sit around and draw a paycheck, which gets pretty tiring after a month or so.

Communications Technology: Did you get into cable while working at Collins?

Bill Karnes: Not because I was working at Collins, but at the same time. A good friend called me one day and asked me to do him a favor. He said: "I've been talking to this company called Jerrold about a job. They do something called community antenna television (CATV) and are looking for a field engineer. Would you go and talk to them and see if they tell you the same things they are telling me?"

I said, "Sure," and a couple of days later I met Jim Stilwell and Fred Lieberman. Fred was, at the time, national sales manager for Jerrold, and Jim was the Southwest regional manager. I took their test, interviewed, and they offered me the job. So I had to explain why I was there and that I didn't want to interfere with my friend's chances. Fred said, "Well, we're not going to hire him, anyway, but if you're interested, we'd like to have you." I took the job.

Communications Technology: You seem to have worked with all of the famous old-timers and pioneers of the industry. I remember Bob Magness referring to the engineering work that you did. Tell us about the old days.

Bill Karnes: I started out as a field engineer for Jerrold, without the slightest idea of what I was supposed to be doing. They had me calling on customers, and one of my first trips was to a place called Memphis, Texas.

In 1957, a young guy named Bob Magness was going to build a cable TV system. Bob had a partner at that time named Dub Bowlus. Both of them had worked for a cattle-feed supplier and had decided to go into this TV venture.

I showed up, accompanied by another Jerrold field engineer named Clarence Light. Clarence gave me a lot of instruction and, by golly, we got that system put together, and it actually worked. All the signals were over-the-air, using a 400-foot tower. Picture quality was nowhere near what we look for today, but it was a lot better than anyone could do with a home antenna.

I remember the night we had the "grand opening" celebration at the National Guard Armory. Bob and Betsy took orders for service, and we nearly had to hire armed guards for crowd control. I think they signed up 400 or 500 customers that night, which was almost every home in town.

My next job was in Shamrock, Texas, building a system for two brothers, Siebert and Eugene Worley. Both of them have passed on by now. This was my first system to build by myself, and it was also one of the first, if not the very first, turnkey system that Jerrold contracted for. I had another field engineer from Jerrold with me-Dick Obarski.

After Shamrock, I got a new title of sales engineer. This didn't change what I was doing at all, but I suppose it sounded better. My job was to advise customers, design systems and sell Jerrold equipment-not necessarily in that order. I traveled all over the Southwest for the next few years doing that. During that time, I met men such as Jack Crosby, Ben Conroy, Glenn Flynn, John Campbell, George Milner, John Mankin and hosts of others who contributed so much to the growth of the cable business.

Communications Technology: Didn't Jerrold move you around?

Bill Karnes: Sure. I moved from Dallas to Amarillo, Texas, and then to Denver. While in Denver, I met a group of investors who wanted to get into the cable TV business. They asked me to come to work with them. The company was called AmericanTenna Corp. We had franchises in Union City, Tenn., and Glasgow, Ky., and we bought an existing system in Wausau, Wis. AmericanTenna was planning to set the world on fire, but never found the right match, so ignition never did occur. Their systems were later sold.

I called Fred Lieberman and told him that I needed a job. Fred hired me as a sales rep, working out of Dallas. A year or so later, I moved to Glenside, Pa., where Fred was headquartered and became vice president of construction for TeleSystems Corp. We built cable systems in Warner-Robins, Ga.; Selma, Ala.; Lubbock, Texas; Macon, Ga.; and a number of other places. Along about 1967, one of the infamous Federal Communications Commission Report and Order things came along, and new system construction pretty much stopped.

Fred was a partner with Jack Crosby and Ben Conroy in a company called GenCoE, based in Austin, Texas. Since there was no contract construction going on, I moved to Austin and worked with that company for a year or so, during which time we built Midland, Texas. GenCoE was sold to Livingston Oil Co., and the headquarters moved to Tulsa, Okla. I didn't want to go there, so I decided to do some freelance consulting work.

Communications Technology: I remember GenCoE-what happened to that outfit?

Bill Karnes: Livingston Oil operated it under the name LVO Cable, which was bought later by Gene Schneider, and all that eventually became United Video.

After deciding to pass up the move to Tulsa, I did contract work on various projects. I went to a Christmas party at Jack Crosby's house in Austin and met a young man named Doug Jarvis. At the time, Doug was president of National Trans-Video, a cable multiple systems operator (MSO) owned by Charles Sammons. I had met Doug before, but we had not known each other well.

A few weeks later, while working at a headend in Plainview, Texas, I got a phone call from Doug. He had decided to leave the cable business and resign from National Trans-Video. He was recommending his operations vice president, a man named Dick Gamble, as the new president. Doug said that Dick Gamble would need an operations person and asked if I would be interested.

A couple of days later, Dick called me to come to Dallas for an interview, and a few days later he offered me the job of vice president, operations, of National Trans-Video. This was in about September of 1968, and one of my first assignments was to attend a managers meeting in the Bahamas in January-tough duty, but I did it.

I stayed with National Trans-Video until 1972. During this time the company name became Sammons Communications, and I became its president. We also acquired the cable systems owned by Jerrold Electronics, which doubled the size of Sammons from 100,000 customers to more than 200,000. At the time, this was one of the largest cable deals that had been made, and it was a lot of fun getting it done.

Communications Technology: Didn't you do some work for Bob Story in Oklahoma?

Bill Karnes: I spent a lot of time working with Bennett and Bob Story. At the time, they owned cable systems in Madill and Durant, Okla. I worked with them for several years as a consultant and eventually rebuilt the two systems as a contractor.

The Storys decided to sell their systems and asked me to act as a broker for them, which I did. The systems were sold to a company called Omni Cable Television, which no longer exists.

In the mid-'70s, I got a call from an operator in Houston, asking me to come and work with them in their subscription TV operation. This system was eventually sold, and I got to be a consultant again. A couple of my consulting customers asked me to contract with them to build cable systems, so I bought some trucks, tools, lashing machines and stuff and hired some guys who knew how to spell "cable." We built systems in Oklahoma, Kansas, Michigan and Texas, and then I sold the company to my superintendent, Les Swain.

Working with Omni Cable, I met Fred Dupuy, and after I sold my construction business, Fred asked me to join him in a small venture to design and build a low-cost character generator. At the time, character generators were selling for $7,000 and up, so we did well with our $3,995 unit. It didn't take long, though, for the big guys to discover us, and they started coming out with lower cost products at lower prices, and since we were not financed heavily enough to withstand the waiting period, we sold that company.

Along the way, I had met Jack Moore. Jack was running a company designing and building electronic news gathering trucks. That company failed, but Jack found an opportunity to start a subsidiary of a company called TI IN Networks, out of San Antonio. TI IN was in the distance learning business and wanted us to become a subsidiary to provide them with research and development, manufacturing, and field maintenance. We did that, and after a year or so TI IN decided to close its doors, leaving us out on the concrete.

In the meantime, Jack found an opportunity to buy an RF modem product line from Ferranti Aerospace. He asked me if I would like to join him in making the acquisition and building a company, to which I said yes. We were able to make the purchase with no money down and pay for it out of future profits. Since total purchase price was $125,000 and we had more than $200,000 in firm orders on the books at time of purchase, it didn't take long to pay off the note.

Later, we brought in another partner and bought out Jack's interest, and then further along, my wife and I were able to buy our partner's interest. We also acquired another modem product line, and we have developed some new products on our own.

Communications Technology: Bill, I know that you have been involved in some pretty interesting situations during these many years. Would you share some of these with us?

Bill Karnes: Well, 43 years of cable TV has been fun, and it's been "interesting."

Back in the late '50s, we were changing the Tyler, Texas, system from a three-channel strip-amp system to a five-channel "broadband" system. Early one morning, Dick Obarski and I were balancing some amplifiers that we had changed out earlier and found that we had forgotten something or other that we needed. Whatever it was, we had left it at the headend, and Dick drove back to the headend to get it.

Let me set the scene up for you: It's early fall; the morning is a little cool and crisp. We've been up since 4:30 or so, and it's now about 7 a.m. At that time, amplifiers were installed in cabinets mounted on cross-arms attached to the poles. Strand-mounting hadn't been invented yet. Our signal level meters (SLMs) were 120 V powered, and we got power from the AC plug strip up in the amplifier cabinet. We also used a long RG-59 jumper to read levels on the ground.

I had the SLM in the front seat of my station wagon, with power and signal cables running out the window and up to the amplifier cabinet. Given the cool morning and with nothing to do until Dick returned, I sat down in the car, started the engine and ran the heater. The windows were rolled up, of course. Having been up for a while and finding myself toasty warm from the car heater, I dozed off.

Suddenly I heard this bang-bang-bang on the car window. Startled out of my dozing, I opened the door to see a man standing outside asking, "Are you all right?" "Of course," I answered. "Well," he said, "I saw you sitting there with your eyes closed and the engine running and them hoses running up to that electric pole, and I wanted to make sure you were OK."

Then there was the time that Jim Stilwell forced an airline flight that had already departed to come back and get him. Try that in today's market. Anyway, Jim, who was known in the cable business for making flights by the last coat of paint on the clock face, was in Bluefield, W.Va. For a change, he got to the airport about a half-hour before flight time.

The plane had not yet arrived, and since there was precious little to do at the Bluefield terminal, not even coffee, Jim decided to drive down the road and grab a cup. He got back about 10 minutes before scheduled departure, only to have the desk guy tell him that the flight had already come and gone.

Jim's "You can't do that!" yells were met with: "Yes, we can. If a passenger is not present 10 minutes before scheduled departure, we can leave without him." Jim threatened all kinds of punishment for this, and finally the desk guy said, "I don't have to do this, but since there was no one else on the plane, and since it's on the last leg of its trip for the day, let me call the captain and ask him what he'd like to do."

The captain, who was only a few minutes out anyway, agreed to come back and get Jim. As far as I know, this is the only recorded instance of an airline coming back to get a passenger after the plane's already left. It probably helped that the plane was a DC-3.

Communications Technology: What about helping to start the SCTE?

Bill Karnes: There are lots of places where the history of SCTE can be read, and I am really proud to know that my name appears among the others who started this society, nurtured it and helped it grow and become the force that it is today.

The basic philosophy that we began with is still the underlying message-training and interchange of information. To see the membership grow from fewer than 100 people 30 years ago to 15,000 today, and to walk through Expo and see the exhibits, and to realize the seriousness with which the Society is received by other elements of the electronics industry, are all sources of tremendous satisfaction to me. I hope, and I believe, that the other founding members feel the same way.

My last comment is just this: For 43 years, I've never had to work for a living, and I've not met more than a couple of people that I would not want to sit around a table and reminisce with. It's been a great life, and I envy the people starting out in cable now. They are going to look back in some number of years, and although the level of knowledge required now is light years ahead of what we had to learn, I hope every one of them can say, "It's been a great life!"

Rex Porter is editor-in-chief of "Communications Technology." He can be reached via e-mail at .

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