Michael Valentine, a philanthropist from Cincinnati and one of the first people to use a radar device, died suddenly at home on Monday. Seventy-four.
Valentine started Cincinnati Microwave and Valentine Research in 1983 with his wife Margaret. The latter business became famous for making an early radar detector that became very popular after being written about in Car and Driver magazine in 1979.
Radar detectors themselves send out messages that can make nearby detectors go off when they shouldn’t. This is something that people who copied his device didn’t think about. Back then, if everyone got a radar detector, they would all go off at the same time, making them useless.
However, in 1983, he came up with a way for his device to block those other signals so that it would only go off when police radar scanners saw it. This made his place in what some people called the “citation-avoidance” business even stronger.
Later, in 2016, the Valentines, who both graduated from the University of Cincinnati, gave $5 million to the Fifth Third Arena project. Since the Valentines were moving, they gave $10 million to the Cincinnati Ballet during their move in 2019.
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Getting his amateur radio license when he was a student at Vandalia High School was motivated by his interest in electrical engineering. He worked at W8MM and he and his wife became the “single biggest individual donors in ARRL history.” It is the Amateur Radio Relay League’s job to promote amateur radio in the United States.
Mike Valentine, creator of the legendary V1 radar detector, passed away on Monday.https://t.co/a55unxNob4
— Motor1 (@Motor1com) September 19, 2024
He also gave the University of Cincinnati the Michael D. Valentine Engineering Library Fund so that students would always have access to the best tools and education.
Margaret (Peg) K. Valentine, his wife of 51 years, his daughter Martha Johnson (David) of Oregonia, and his daughter Anna Valentine (Iah Pillsbury) of Colorado Springs, Colorado, are among his survivors. He also leaves behind grandkids Heidi Reidar Johnson and Avi Pillsbury. His siblings Nancy Lowe of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Kathy Valentine of Goshen; Sandra Paulsen (Nick) of Vandalia; Cheryl Valentine of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina; and James Kreutzberg (Cherie) of Findlay also survive him.
