Isaac Brimberg: The Broadcast Pioneer Who Made It All Work

WNYC Chief Engineer Isaac Brimberg

WNYC's Chief Engineer Isaac Brimberg was a pioneer in radio broadcasting. He joined WNYC at its opening in 1924 after his obtaining a B.S. and E.E. degrees from MIT.  Brimberg was named to the top engineering post in 1929. He oversaw the WPA construction of our new studios and our state-of-the-art transmission facilities at Greenpoint, Brooklyn--both opening in October 1937. Brimberg was also responsible for setting up our shortwave facility W2XVP in 1940 and our experimental FM station W39NY, now WNYC-FM.  Major Isaac Brimberg was a rising star in the Army Signal Corps in 1943 working on radar systems when he died tragically at the age of 40 as a result of complications following a gun accident during shooting practice.

Not long after Brimberg was made Chief Engineer, he was challenged with designing and executing a plan for linking up neighborhood parks with sound systems and amplifiers so that major concerts at Central Park, Prospect Park, and Lewisohn Stadium could be enjoyed by concertgoers throughout the city. The initial plan called for connecting 25 parks in the network with expansion to a total of 80 in the coming years. All the routing was done through WNYC.[1] The work was also prelude for what was to come with the planning and building of the station's new WPA-funded transmitter site at 10 Kent Street, Brooklyn (now WNYC Transmitter Park) and the construction of state-of-the-art studios at the Municipal Building. Here, Brimberg is noted for introducing the first 'floating' studio rooms to New York area broadcast facilities.[2] These new studios were soon followed by his oversight of the design and installation of remote studios in the City of New York Building at the 1939-1940 World's Fair.

'Brimmy' as he was affectionately known, was very much an engineer of the 'Yankee' ingenuity school who, when faced with a problem, was great at thinking outside the box. The following is from an account by former WNYC Director Seymour N. Siegel on how Brimberg overcame remote transmission problems when sending a signal from Music Mountain in the Berkshire foothills back to WNYC.

…Bearing in mind Mayor La Guardia's admonition to substitute ingenuity and brains for dollars, Ike (Brimmy) Brimberg, the station's Chief Engineer, suggested the use of our portable short wave equipment.  He produced from some arcane source, two white balloons which would provide an instant antenna without any attachment to any existing structure…It was on July 3, 1938 [3] when Brimmy and I arrived at Music Mountain to carry out Novik's [WNYC Director Morris S. Novik] pioneering idea to bring some of the world's great musical performances live to the audiences of New York City's own station, WNYC…Novik had arranged for this special coverage of the Gordon String Quartette…Brimmy came upon the then summer resident, McNeil Mitchell, an assistant Corporation Counsel of the City.  He was pleased to allow us to use his living room as a command post to hook together short wave reception from the white balloons…[4]

The shortwave signal at 1620 kilocycles was picked up at Mitchell's house and fed from there by telephone line to the studios. After the first several concerts a direct line was installed, and the rest of the summer's performances went on without a hitch.[5]

This was just one of Brimmy's many inventions. On October 10, 1929, he filed for a patent on "a novel apparatus for reproducing and simulating musical notes and instruments."  This pioneering electronic synthesizer was composed of seven rotating discs on a shaft.  All the discs but one "has embedded in it a wire on which is magnetically recorded fundamentals and overtones of a note or some sound effect."  Passing the disc by a magnet and sending the variation in the current through a transformer, variable resistance, and amplifier, numerous effects are obtained. Brimberg described the operation of his invention this way:

By means of the controlling member, the pitch and tremolo effects can be varied at the will of the operator. Varying the rheostat varies the current which is employed, so that the rise and fall of the current produces a tremolo effect. By means of switches, the operator can reproduce selectively different notes or sound effects, and these will be reproduced and pass to the amplifier at the output end of the device. The variable resistance is controllable at the will of the operator to vary the overall volume of the combination of notes and sound effects which is reproduced.  In accordance with the invention, any notes and sound effects which have been recorded can be readily reproduced.[6]

A patent for the invention was granted on February 19, 1935.  Although Brimberg indicated his device could be made inexpensively, we have yet to discover whether he ever made one that was used at WNYC.  According to his son, Dr. Arthur Brimberg, his father was also involved with electronic improvements to the Hammond organ and invented an instrument similar to the Theremin: PATENT #1991727.

 

Isaac Brimberg's original WNYC shield and New York World's Fair badge.

 

Original car shield used by Isaac Brimberg for offcial WNYC business.

  

[1] Taylor, S. Gordon, "Sound Amplifiers Provide More Parks with Music," Radio News, January 1930, pgs. 638-639, 652, 678.

[2] "Model Houses of 50 Years Ago Being Wrecked," The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 30, 1940, pg. 21.

[3] Siegel, Seymour N., personal papers at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming  It appears that Siegel misremembered his arriving at Music Mountain with Brimberg as being in July when he meant June. The New York Times reported the station's first use of a shortwave transmitter to cover the Gordon recital as June 12, 1938. See: "WNYC Uses Portable Set," The New York Times, June 13, 1938, pg. 35.

[4] Siegel, Ibid.

[5] Golub, Edward, "Radio Station WNYC AM," Antique Radio Classified, October 2003,  pg. 6

[6] Brimberg, Isaac, U.S. Patent Application, Feb. 19, 1935. BRIMBERG 1,991,727, APPARATUS FOR REPRODUCING SOUND Original Filed Co t. 10, 1929 KRRKQ INVENTOR T x K2,