Ken Schaffer

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Ken Schaffer is an inventor and, in the late 1960s, was a publicist for such rock stars as Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, and even chose Alice Cooper's name.^{[citation needed]}

A lifelong amateur radio enthusiast, in the 1970s he invented a low-noise/wide dynamic range wireless microphone and then a wireless guitar system.^{[citation needed]} He made more than a thousand microphones (at $4,400 each), the first sale was to the Rolling Stones. Which Mick Jagger used when he danced around the stage, as did nearly every other major touring rock group in the 70s and 80s. What made a Schaffer mic and wireless guitar system worth so much was not just that it just kept rock stars from being electrocuted (KISS switched to Schaffer after a band member was seriously injured), but that it had excellent sound quality. NASA eventually became a customer, using Schaffer's innovative preprocessing circuits to improve astronaut voice communication.

In the 1980s, Schaffer fell in love with Russia and started a company to bring modern voice communication to western companies operating there, later selling that company to Comsat, the biggest player in satellite communication. Schaffer put together a system for Columbia University to allow Soviet Studies students to watch live Russian TV by tapping non-geosynchronous satellite broadcasts with an 11-foot dish on a rooftop in Manhattan. The then fledgling Discovery Channel used this technology to devote a week to carrying Russian TV, winning it a Golden Ace award.

In 2003, Schaffer launched a device called TV2Me, which enables customers to access their cable TV channels from anywhere in the world via a broadband internet connection. This is described as 'spaceshifting', as opposed to 'timeshifting'. For copyright reasons, the signal from a TV2Me unit can only be accessed by one customer.

Schaffer's ex-wife, Alla Kliouka, a popular Russian TV actress, appeared on The Sopranos, playing Uncle Junior's one-legged Russian nurse who ended up having sex with Tony Soprano.

[edit] See also

• TV2Me