The Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia

Often referred to as a "brilliant" man and a very "loyal" employee, Raymond Bowley was truly a Broadcast Pioneer. He was born in Canada in the village of Petitcodiac in New Brunswick, east of the Maine border.

He grew up in Boston and was a graduate of MIT (The Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in Cambridge, MA. He married Edith Tucker from Somerville, MA, a town about 8 miles away from the university. They had four children: Patricia, Raymond Jr. Ralph, and Richard. He had 12 grandchildren who lovingly called him "Pop."

He loved telling stories about the "beginning days of television" and the development of the color TV. He told his daughter Patricia that he spoke fluent German because the manuals he was interested in were all in German. Raymond's son, Richard was on Pete Boyle's program on Channel 3.

Raymond Bowley is the one standing with the tie showing
control room of the 1948 convention
1948

When he was at WPTZ, he was their Chief Engineer. He went to NYC when Channel 3 went to NBC. He started at W3XE in 1933

He made a speech recommending that film distributors provide stations with prints made to tv specifications. He explained that films produced for the theater screen have a contrast range of 100:1 where home TV received can reproduce a contrast range of 30:1. Bowley said that many feature films show up poorly on the home screen. He urged distributors to "compress the contrast range" to TV standards of 30-1.

He was quite often a speaker at the NAB conventions. Bowley held a 1940 patent on sound reproducing apparatus equipment.

He was Audio and Visual Director of all of the Westinghouse Broadcasting radio and TV stations. Also, if any stations went out on strike, he had to cross picket lines (with guards) to man the stations. He was in line to be Vice President, but decided to retire early.

The e-mail address of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia is pioneers@broadcastpioneers.com