My father's family bought a TV in Baltimore at a time (mid-late 1940's) that, he has told me, the local paper used to list families who had television on a regular basis!
He got a first class FCC license in the 1950's and worked as a broadcast engineer in Balto. I don't think he started doing repairs for a living 'til about 1957 -- so not really a pioneer.
Here's a photo of the old man riding gain on an Ampex R2R at a remote for WITH radio.
http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthr...ighlight=ampex