on plans still in the concep-tual stage.

“I would like to take this time to ask you to consider making the right side of the boat launch open to people with dogs to take a dip,” she said, adding that canines would be leashed.

“During the late after-noon to evening hours is an option. We could add anoth-er pet waste station. This area is not used and would have a positive impact for Naples people and their

dogs. People have no place to take their dog for a dip during the summer and it’s a complaint often shared,” Leo said.

“I watched the traffic all summer and [that part of] the beach is hardly used so I don’t see much interaction with dogs and beachgoers. And, of course, they need to be on leash at all times,” she said.

This summer, the Information Center got a new venue that is more vis-ible to passers-by. The cen-ter moved from inside the Naples Historical Society Museum to the small brick

building overlooking Route 302.

“Having 302 frontage is very important,” she said. “It is my understanding that a sign is being made like other town signs. Hopefully, that will be ready for 2019.”

“The kiosk was renovat-ed, painted and all new plas-tic windows were installed. I left a map, all member liter-ature, year-round flyers such as the American Legion Post 155 and the Edes Falls cal-endar and area hiking maps of interest,” she said. The kiosk “will be active again in the spring.”

“I had visitors each day.

They were very pleased with the amount of info available in the Lake Region areas. One request is for local trails they can walk with their dogs. RFB Advertising dropped off a new booklet called Pet Maine, the first of its kind devoted to all the areas in Maine that are pet-friendly,” Leo said.

“This will be one of the economic forces for our area in the near future,” she said.

Leo is trying to propel the promotion of Naples to Maine and to the rest of the country.

“I am partnering with RFB Advertising to take the 2019 brochure to the next level. This will include sell-ing ads. This will be a new booklet-style with room to add more information about Naples. My goal is for this to be a resource to attract people interesting in moving to Naples or visiting during the ‘off-season.’ An English teacher from Lake Region High School (LRHS) has volunteered her time to write the text,” Leo said.

“We have been trying to market Naples a little bit more — not just the Causeway but all the busi-

nesses and community groups,” she said.

“We are looking at doing a video in the future to make Naples a destination town,” she said.

This summer, giving peo-ple who are already here a place to sit down and chill out was accomplished.

“A new picnic table was purchased and placed under the tree in the front of the building. This was used almost every day by tourists and locals enjoying the view of the beach and the lake,” she said.

The picnic table is a metal folding one. Therefore, it was folded for easy stor-age inside the brick building during the winter months, she said.

Over the summer, Leo has been photographing and videotaping events in the community such as the Maine Blues Festival, the 25th Anniversary of the Mountainview Woodies Classic Boat Club’s vin-tage boat and car show, the Naples 5K and Naples Lions Club fundraisers. The photos and video were downloaded to Naples, Maine Classic Causeway on Facebook.

“I monitor e-mail and Facebook during the off sea-son,” she said.

Additionally, Leo is working on an informa-tional page on Facebook to share goings-on in Naples. Plus, this year she added Naples-based happenings to the state’s tourism calendar of events.

Lastly, Leo pitched an idea that many people have seen.

“This would be free publicity for Naples. Those things that people put their heads in and take photos — a lot of towns have them,” she said. “They are wildly-popular, fun and family-friendly. These would be stand-alone signs, put out in mid-June and taken down in October.”

“I have one artist creat-ing a sketch for approval and I am looking for more. Please contact me if anyone is interested,” she said.

Her e-mail address is naplesinfo@yahoo.com

“I will be looking for local artists to submit ideas and donate time. This could be a fun way to unite the community and town,” she said.

the purity, potency, consistent high quality, and value B&B offers its community. In order to provide pure medical qual-

ity cannabis, free of metals and contaminants, molds and other harmful pests, growers need pristine environments. Though thorough testing, technology

and science have improved the process, many cannabis providers regularly opt out of testing their medicine; some even pass off simply unhealthy products and get fined hefty sums.

B&B Cultivation is differ-ent, owner Shawn Browdy says. “We designed it that way,” he noted.

Recirculating Deep Water Culture (RDWC) Hydroponics was developed by NASA and uses no soil to grow in outer space. Plants grow quicker and are more resistant to bacteria. Plants are not wasting valu-able time trying to find a spe-cific nutrient or avoid a stone. The custom system assures the ability for constant analysis, consistent exact nutrient dos-ages, and real time adjustment capabilities in case nature finds its rough spots. There are no pests, no molds and pre-cise controls, yielding the most reliable, consistent and power-ful product, Browdy said.

A state-of-the-art secu-rity system at the offsite grow facility and the retail shop assure the safety of the com-munity and the medicine.

B&B is veteran-owned and operated. B&B graciously provides military veterans 20 percent off their purchases with proper identification, and proudly thanks those who serve for their contribution to the nation.

“As believers in quality lives for everyone, no matter your station in life, a loyalty card provides those with fewer resources a way to earn quality rewards,” he said. “We are so grateful to the many friends and neighbors who have vis-ited as we built our gallery, and want our space to be a center for both wellness and commu-nity. A nurse practitioner will be available every Thursday evening for certification, add-ing to the convenience for many locals seeking to get relief.”

Can’t make it to the open house? Find B&B on Facebook, Instagram, or at www.bbcultivation.com

B&B Cultivation open house(Continued from Page 3A)

the Susquehanna River, also known as the Sunbury Power Plant in his home state of Pennsylvania. He stayed with that job for four years, seeing the completion of two units of the power plant.

It was at this point in his life, his interest turned from power engineering to electron-ic engineering. This change in career direction was spurred by an interest in ham radio.

“During those four years, I spent evenings and weekends with my cousin Herb learning about ham radio,” he said.

The two men built anten-nas to improve their radio reception. To this day, Wetzel is avidly involved with ham radio and communicates with people around the world.

In 1952, when Wetzel gained employment with RCA, he met Ed Shively. He was assigned to the UHF antenna group for his train-

ing session. When Shively heard about his experience designing ten meter beams for ham radio, he took him to the Marlton Medford Airport, where the antenna was almost complete. It was fascinating, he said.

Wetzel said he was exactly where he wanted to be.

“My first assignment was in the antenna department to assist in operating the antenna pattern range. My experience with my cousin during the pre-vious five years made me feel like I just entered heaven to operate one of the best facili-ties in the world to do the job. The engineer who I was sent to assist did not like the job so within two weeks, I was put in charge of the operation,” Wetzel said.

“I followed many of these antennas into the field and traveled throughout the U.S. I found working with customers [satisfying] and decided that

a more customer-oriented job would suit me best,” he said.

In the early 1960s, Wetzel was employed by Triangle Publications Broadcast Properties, which owned five AM radio station, five FM radio stations and six TV stations as well as the Philadelphia Inquirer.

This is when he began the testing that would result in the FCC ruling reversal, which had to do with the FCC requirement for aural transmit-ter power to be at 50% of the visual transmitter power. The problem was first brought to his attention by his boss at Triangle.

In October 1962, General Manager Roger Clip came in to Wetzel’s office. Just to give you a little background: Triangle had just put color television origination in the new studios. All three stations in Philly did that. He came in and said that he was watching

TV during his lunch break. He said, ‘Lew. I see some interfer-ence in our color station that I don’t see in Channel 3 and 6.’ Those were our competitors. I said, ‘I don’t have a color set at home.’ He said, ‘Go buy one. We’ll pay for it.’ ”

“They were just taking delivery on the new 1963 color sets. I bought the biggest and the best RCA console I could find. I watched the news that night. The color wasn’t as good. Most of the general pub-lic accepted that kind of thing.

The next day I said, ‘I saw what you are talking about. I am going to investigate,’ ” Wetzel said.

He called the receiver-design people at RCA’s exper-imental plant in Princeton, N.J., and set up a face-to-face meeting.

“I explained about the interference. He said, ‘We were waiting for someone from Channel 6 to complain.

The aural carriers are com-peting with the color carriers. How to fix it? Put a filter on the back of the set. With thou-sands of TV sets already in homes, that is not the answer. The solution was to get the aural carrier down,” he said.

Wetzel called Kassens at the FCC; and he “got an experimental license to reduce the aural transmitter.”

Wetzel conducted his experiments outside of town with the help of the origi-nal mobile telephone, which weighed 75 pounds and oper-ated on 75 megahertz.

“I got out where the color picture is good and telephoned. I started with 50% of peak visual power, and reduced the aural. Anywhere, I could get a good picture. We found that 6% gave us plenty for the aural. I went back and wrote up the report. The next week, I was in Washington, D.C.,” appearing before the FCC.

A year after figuring out how to make circular polar-ization work, in 1964, Wetzel went to Geneva as part of the U.S. team at the International Radio Regulations meetings. It was an exciting time, he said. The night before the pre-sentation on circular polariza-tion, he and an acquaintance went to the secretarial pool so the paper could be tran-scribed in French, German, Italian and Russian, he said. This was done in less than an hour, he said. His wife joined him in Spain midway through the conferences.

Wetzel moved to Casco in August 1971. He and Mariam, “Mimi,” his wife of 65 years, still reside in the home they purchased upon arriving in Maine.

The couple met in Pennsylvania at a wedding. She was playing the organ and he had been hired as a photog-rapher.

Casco engineer made few waves with FCC rulings(Continued from Page 1A)

broached when the swing bridge was replaced with a fixed bridge and the Causeway was improved, starting in 2010.

Now, it might be another year before there’s a fix for the traffic and pedestrian safety at that intersection.

“Initially, the agreement was cost sharing to redo the cross-walks” and put in pedestrian signals, Hawley said.

The board of selectmen “decided on a right-hand turn-ing lane off Route 35. It didn’t make any sense to do cross-walks and not take care of the turning lane,” he said.

“Since we instigated this other project, DOT is interest-

ed. They have to be involved — it’s a state road. But, it would be locally-funded,” he said.

“Because of the very early estimates of maybe a million dollars, the selectmen are now interested in doing a coopera-tive agreement with the state,” he said.

“What is driving the price up? We have done the explor-atory homework. There would be [the costs of] surveying, any land acquisitions, all the design and development work. Upgrading the intersection would require the traffic sig-nal to be changed,” Hawley explained.

“The signals are pretty close to 30 years old. The

newer signal would replace what is there, and accommo-date new traffic patterns, to move traffic more efficiently,” he said. “Right now, it works on a time system and doesn’t change when the traffic is heavier or lighter.”

So, the Naples selectmen agreed “to put off the proj-ect for a year and to apply for a shared agreement, where MDOT would pay for half of the project. We have to go through an application pro-cess, but they would consider it,” Hawley said.

“It was just a couple cross walks, until it was the turning lane and now we are effecting the state roads,” he said.

Naples seeks cost-share pact(Continued from Page 1A)

Center(Continued from Page 1A)

Area newsOctober 11, 2018, The Bridgton News, Page 5A