07/23/2026
A Crosley giant: Clyde G. "Bud" Haehnle passed away at 95 on Sunday, April 8, 2018, surrounded by his loving family in his home. He was preceded in death by his loving wife of 68 years, Ethel.
In 2016, the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting named its new meeting and exhibit space Clyde Haehnle Hall. Clyde, a VOA Museum board member, had been a huge supporter of the museum effort at the 1942-44 VOA Bethany Relay Station, 7080 Tylersville Road, West Chester Township, Ohio, where he worked as a University of Cincinnati electrical engineering co-op for Crosley Broadcasting. Clyde was the go-to-guy for information about the VOA, WLW's 500,000-watt broadcasts (1934-39), and all of Crosley/AVCO Broadcasting's operations.
After graduating from UC in 1948, Clyde joined Crosley full-time as an engineer and eventually supervised the development of television stations, new AM transmitter technology, and shortwave propagation engineering.
The 30,000-square-foot VOA building once housed six high-powered transmitters broadcasting in 20 languages between 1945 and 1995 and became a historical center to explain what happened there in the past and how technology, honesty and the creative spirit are still relevant today in spreading truth and providing encouragement globally to those seeking information without political bias. The VOA Museum includes the Gray History of Wireless Museum antique radios.
Clyde was a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Cincinnati and Delta Tau Delta Fraternity. He dedicated his career to broadcasting with WLW, AVCO Broadcasting and the Voice of America.
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The eyes of broadcast engineer Clyde Haehnle always glowed like an old radio tube when he talked about the Voice of America complex or WLW's unprecedented 500,000-watt transmitter under WLW's tower down the road. He was a walking history text about Crosley Broadcasting's innovations, and he helped build some of them. Later, he oversaw the sale and liquidations of the Crosley/AVCO Broadcasting properties, including WLW.
As vice president of engineering at Crosley/AVCO, he worked on the committee which planned and built the Crosley Telecommunications Center at 1223 Central Parkway, the home of WCET-TV (Channel 48) and Cincinnati Public Radio's WVXU-FM and WGUC-FM.
Bud Haehnle also was a local historian and broadcasting advocate who served on the boards for WCET-TV and the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting. After graduating from Withrow High School, he studied electrical engineering at the University of Cincinnati and was a co-op at the Crosley Corporation. His first assignment was at the WLW transmitter on Tylersville Road in Mason. The government allowed Crosley to experiment with broadcasting with 500,000 watts of radiated power from 1934 to 1943. WLW''s 1934 "super power" transmitter was 54 feet wide, 13 feet tall and 7 feet deep.
After graduating from UC, one of Haehnle's first projects in 1944 was working on the Crosley team which designed and built the Voice of America's Bethany Station (now the VOA Museum of Broadcasting) and its vast array of antennae to transmit high-powered shortwave radio programming around the world. Haehnle designed the antenna patterns only with pencil, paper and a slide rule, the latter on display in the VOA.
In 1965 he was named AVCO's vice president in 1965 and remained with AVCO as its final employee in 1976, selling off all the assets and property. He then worked for R.C. Crisler Co. as a broadcast station broker, where he helped form Jacor Communications, owners of WLW and WEBN-FM (now part of iHeartMedia.)
At the 75th anniversary of WLW's first 500,000-watt broadcast at the Mason tower, Haehnle told those in attendance that WLW broadcasts were heard in Mexico, Canada, South America – and also in Mason-area downspouts, gutters and stoves. "There was a motel at U.S. 42 and Tylersville road where the neon sign would never go out because of the energy from the transmitter. We had a crew that did nothing but go out and tighten loose gutters with sheet metal screws."
"Haehnle held many patents in electronic technology and continued to be a curious and thoughtful proponent of technology well into his ninth decade," VOA Museum president Jack Dominic said. "Heahnle's untiring leadership and support has enabled the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting to develop into a rich educational institution celebrating the role broadcasting has made in the dissemination of programs globally encouraging democratic principles to truth-starved audiences."
