Gries saw it all as WTVG engineer

During Barry Gries’ career in local television, audio signals went from mono, to stereo, to surround sound; news clips went from being live, to film, to Beta, to video server, and commercials also made the transition from being live, to tape, to server.

Gries, of rural Gibsonburg, retired April 22 after nearly 45 years with WSPD/WTVG – a span that saw him start as a transmitter engineer and become the station’s chief engineer.

Much of his first 20 years was spent working shifts at the 900-plus-foot transmission tower near the corner of BayShore and Stadium roads in Oregon.

Gries describes his workplace in those early days as being awash in a “bluish green light that looked like something out of Frankenstein’s laboratory.”

Barry Gries and Jim Dussel

“You were there alone,” he said. “It was manned seven days a week, 24 hours a day. In those days it was the old tube type transmitter. About 28 years ago we put in the RCA G-line transmitter and it was remote controlled, there wasn’t permanent staffing there after that change. It was a real nice transmitter and the forerunner to the Harris Platinum transmitter we have now, which is all solid state.”

Keeping accurate logs for the Federal Communications Commission and troubleshooting any problems that arose were some of the responsibilities of the engineers. To operate legally, the transmission had to be within a range set by the FCC.

“If something went wrong you had to deal with it right then and there. Back in those early days the FCC had mandated you had to take meter readings of the voltage and current, and those had to all be logged in less than 60 minutes. It kept you busy going through all the transmitters. At that time we also took care of WSPD radio by remote control – the AM site. We kept the logs for that. WSPD-FM was also on our tower at the transmitter. So there were three transmitters we were in control of.

“Later they sold the AM and FM off.  When it went to remote control, we would go out there once a week or so. The operator on duty did the readings by remote control from the station.”

One question the retired Gries isn’t shy about answering is how smooth of a transition was it for the industry to go from analog broadcasts to digital.

“It wasn’t thought out very well by the government,” he said. “We were signed back to be channel 13; we were originally 19. That’s a UHF channel and you could operate a lot more power and things seemed to work right. But they had this formula for the 13 channel, which is VHF, that you would run at these ridiculously low power levels and when we made the transition we just sort of went away. The people out here in the country had taken down their towers, thinking we don’t need that anymore. Rabbit ears worked just fine in their home and after that they didn’t work. So it’s been a bumpy transition.

“I don’t think the government has a real clue what they’re doing yet. It’s all lawyers. There are no engineers on the FCC board of commissioners.”

During the transition to digital, Gries was responsible for four TV stations: Channel 13 analog, Channel 19-1, a simulcast of the analog programming, Channel 19-2, and Channel 19-3, a local all-weather channel. That change required two transmitters and two antennas, which, in turn, required the reinforcement of the tower to hold the additional weight of the new antennas.

While he was chief engineer, Gries had a staff of four maintenance engineers who, like himself, are all amateur radio operators and Gries persuaded station management to allow ARES (Amateur Radio Emegency Service) and Skywarn antennas to be mounted on the tower for emergency communication.

One of the maintenance engineers, Jerry Toth, said Gries hired him from WSPD radio with no television experience.

“He was a great guy to work ‘with’ not for,” Toth said. “His motto was to treat people the way you wanted to be treated,” Toth said.

Gries attributes that philosophy to his boss, George Fuloup, who was chief engineer when he started with the station.

“He was an older gentleman and soft spoken,” Gries said. “He was always willing to give you a helping hand and do what needed to be done to get the job done. I always wanted to follow in his foot steps” 

Gries also oversaw the installation of the station’s Doppler radar weather system at the Oregon site.

It’s worked really great,” he said. “It’s full power so people can see an actual tornado, the twirling winds. The normal radar service stations get from the U.S. Weather Service is six or seven minutes old when displayed on your computers.”

Jim Dussel was named as Gries’ replacement as chief engineer.

Gries said being retired leaves time for plans of a much less technical nature.

“There are a lot of house projects I want to catch up on and I’ll be running down to Charleston, South Carolina and my two grandkids,” he said, adding he may volunteer in the fall at a county park near Charleston that features Christmas decorations open for public tours. “It’s really something to see. We’re thinking about that. At least it’s warmer in that direction.

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