- Born
- Died
- John D. Silva was born on February 20, 1920 in San Diego County, California, USA. John D. was a director, known for The Spade Cooley Show (1957), The Hoffman Hayride (1948) and Harry Owens and His Royal Hawaiians (1949). John D. died on November 27, 2012 in Camarillo, California, USA.
- Silva, whose two Emmy Awards include one in 1974 for developing the Telecopter, was the KTLA station's chief engineer for 21 years. He was director of engineering research from 1976 until 1978, when he retired to become an electronics design consultant. He won his first Emmy in 1970 for his electronic news-gathering.
- Another major contribution of Silva's was the Telemobile, a station wagon with a large camera and photographer's seat mounted on the roof. It also had a microwave dish that was powered by a generator that was towed behind in a trailer. Introduced in the early 1960s, the mobile unit was the forerunner of those used by TV news stations today.
- John joined Paramount Pictures in 1946 who were operating an experimental television station W6XYZ with early television pioneer Klaus Landsberg as station manager and engineer. On January22, 1947 operation commenced as KTLA to become the first commercial television station in Los Angeles, the first station west of the Mississippi and only the seventh station in the United States.
- In 1975 John Silva received the very prestigious National Association of Broadcasters Engineering Award. The engineering award cited Mr. Silva for: his distinguished professional career, for his many contributions to our nation's knowledge in the field of communications technology, for his untiring efforts to foster advances in the art of broadcasting, and for his pioneering spirit which has so richly enhanced the forward progress of broadcast engineering.
- John D. Silva was the chief engineer for KTLA-TV in 1958 when he outfitted a helicopter with a TV camera and changed television news coverage forever. He turned a rented Bell helicopter into the Telecopter, essentially a flying TV studio. The first of its kind, it put Channel 5 news at the forefront of live aerial coverage of major events like parades, fires, earthquakes and massive freeway snarls.
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