From The Star Ledger of Sept 1, 2008

Isaac Blonder, 92, talented inventor
Monday, September 01, 2008

BY NYIER ABDOU

Star-Ledger Staff

Isaac "Ike" Blonder was always a tinkerer.

A pioneer in the production of cable and television equipment, and founder of the cable channel that launched "The Uncle Floyd Show," Blonder first showed an interest in invention in his father's car repair shop in New London, Conn.

The son of Russian immigrants, Mr. Blonder was a talented self-starter and an early "techie," always fascinated by the latest technology.

"He was like many people of his generation," said his son, Greg, of Summit. "He was always trying to improve things."

Mr. Blonder, who lived in Tinton Falls, died Friday of natural causes. He was 92.

He was the bearer of a "kind of subversive sense of humor," his son said. His relationship with his children blossomed when they were old enough to be peers. "He would always speak to kids as adults."

As a member of a covert team of radio and electronics experts with the U.S. Army's Electronic Training Group, Mr. Blonder trained with British forces in the revolutionary use of radar technology to detect German warplanes. He was briefly commissioned as an RAF officer until the United States entered World War II.

Mr. Blonder would later use the same technological savvy to pursue another large and elusive object -- the fabled Loch Ness monster. Under the auspices of the Academy of Applied Science, Mr. Blonder and his friend, patent attorney Bob Rines, would make dozens of trips to Scotland to use radar and sonar imaging to study the murky loch.

But it was Mr. Blonder's groundbreaking inventions in cable and television technology that earned him a place in the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002, a distinction shared with his lifelong business partner and close friend, Ben Tongue.

At a time when professionals signed up with big companies, Mr. Blonder and Tongue struck out on their own, pooling their combined savings of $5,000 to found Blonder-Tongue Laboratories in a dance hall in Yonkers, N.Y.

At night, the two men would assemble their product, a circuit to boost television reception in remote areas, which they successfully marketed. They continued to develop new products, and Blonder-Tongue rapidly outgrew locations in Mount Vernon, Westfield and Newark until it became a company of some 400 employees now operating in Old Bridge.

"For the time, they were on the cutting edge," said Greg Blonder, a physicist-turned-venture capitalist. "It was like the early days of the internet. It was the most exciting thing happening."

Mr. Blonder also developed one of the first cable decoder boxes, helping give birth to the field of pay-per-view systems. His programming on Channel 68 was initially broadcast for free as WBTB -- Blonder-Tongue Broadcasting -- and later as the nation's first pay channel, WWHT. In 1974, WBTB launched "The Uncle Floyd Show," showcasing New Jersey comedian Floyd Vivino, who was then 23.

"He gave me my start in television," recalled Vivino, who lives in Wayne. "I'm just a clown and an entertainer -- he was a brilliant man."

Mr. Blonder met his wife, Lois, a Newark native and professional artist, on a blind date. The couple were married for 46 years until her death in 1999. They were mad about collecting curiosities, and Greg Blonder remembers living in fear that his father would "slam on the brakes" if he spotted a garage sale or flea market.

Greg Blonder fondly remembers childhood "vacations" spent darting under trade show tables and grabbing competitors' price books at technology conventions in Las Vegas hotels. "I honestly thought every kid went on vacations to trade shows," he said.

Later, Mr. Blonder would take the family to Loch Ness, and his children would help set up and monitor sonar equipment. "We'd stay up until 3 a.m. listening for pings," Greg Blonder said.

Once, there was a hit -- a sonar reading of a large, 40-foot object coupled with a "very fuzzy" picture. "I did not see it, but I've met people who did," Mr. Blonder told Green Brook elementary students in a 1995 talk on the Loch Ness creature, covered by The Star-Ledger. "I believe there is one."

Mr. Blonder was buried yesterday at Riverside Cemetery in Saddle Brook.

Surviving are his son, Greg Blonder; his daughter, Terry Golson, of Carlisle, Mass.; and two sisters, Bertha Lee Krantz and Esther Lobel, and a brother, David Blonder, all of Florida. His other son, Brad, died in an accident at the age of 18.