by Eddie Craig of Fort Worth, Texas

This letter to the editor of Radio World Newspaper was originally published on September 27, 2006. Reprinted with the kind permission of Radio World.

I worked at the first station George Marti built, KCLE(AM) in Cleburne, Texas. There, I used prototype Marti units for several years before they were on the market. Marti just built up a few because he needed them. Then he realized that most everybody needed them, so he sold the station and built more Marti units. Way more!

The strangest remote I ever did on a Marti unit was a beer-drinking contest at the Colony in Lafayette, La. We learned the downside of the Marti there; you can just walk into a place, plug it in and be on the air with no planning, no formalities and no permission from the boss. I guess it was Bill Besson, Skip Broussard, Tom Fowler, Sandy Kaplan and yours truly who got in big trouble that night. I haven’t heard those names in a while.

For normal, responsible adults, however, the Marti unit was a wonderful invention.

I guess Marti is 85 this year. I still see him at the grocery store, now and again. And he’s still doing just fine.

Thanks for remembering him.