Harvard Wireless Club > Alumni/ae Forum

Bill Hampton, '52, W9SWQ in a letter to the HWC dated February 3, 1990:

am so glad you have the interest to help W1AF with a history. Student HAMS need all the encouragement they can get. A sense of the historic role that the club has played in the lives of its members and our society is not only good promotion for the hobby but provides needed perspective to the present and future. W1AF is part of an ongoing flow of events which is anything but ended.

Today's sparky group will be affected for life by their hobby and it will work to unknown good in the future. I believe that the encouragement of amateur radio is one of the reasons our country has led the world in the development and use of communications technology. Many Harvard HAMS have helped that along.

I paged through some dusty books I saved from my Cambridge years and found one Yearbook report and one Crimson article. I had these photocopied and enhanced and they are enclosed. If you need the negatives, let me know.

I think that in the period between 1928 and 1950, the Wireless Club was integrated in some way into The Institute of Geographical Exploration on Divinity Avenue. When I arrived in Cambridge in 1948, The Institute was winding down their affairs. I had come intending to major in Geography, but was advised that the major had just been closed to new students. I do not know how they disposed of the club records or the collection of antique radio equipment. Inquiry into that might turn up something. When the club reopened at 52 Dunster, we got little or nothing from the past. We were told there was some intent to preserve the possessions of the Institute, perhaps for a museum, and these were not available to us.

A Mr. Fahnstock had a rumored involvement in the past. He was the same Fahnstock who invented the Fahnstock Clip for electrical connections. An alum, he contributed some of the proceeds of this and other patents to the University—perhaps to the Institute and perhaps to W1AF. That might be a clue to the mysteries.

What history we did put together at the time was in large part the work of my upperclass roommate, John A. Kaufmann. John was on the staff of the Harvard Crimson and was good enough to do some digging in their morgue.

Jim Hirschman interested me in Ham radio when I met him during freshman year. We both lived in Weld Hall, and he had his rig in his room on the top floor. He had been active for several years and he seemed to know that there had been a club. At that time the club was entirely inactive.

If you had a license, Harvard would allow you to put an antenna on the roof and operate, and there were two or three who did. Chris Davis had a room in the tower of the Divinity School with a 20 meter band vertical antenna and ground plane on the tower roof. He clearly found the best location. Since he was not really studying religion, he had gone to some trouble to enroll there in order to get it! I don't remember any others, but Jim might since he was on the air frequently.

I greatly wanted to become a HAM, but it seemed a far fetched goal. I had failed to progress in Boy Scouts beyond Second Class because I could not seem to memorize the Morse Code. Furthermore, as Harvard students went, I was poor as a church mouse. My $25. per month allowance would hardly keep me in toothpaste and pencils. Radio equipment for my room was entirely out of the question. Clearly a club with shared equipment was the only possibility I could imagine.

Jim was convinced that anyone could learn the code. He infected me with his enthusiasm, had his Instructograph machine and tapes sent from home and loaned me a dog eared copy of the Radio Amateur's Handbook. I studied and practiced and I agitated with him to do something about the club. He insisted that he did not have the time and that if there was going to be a club, then I had to get a license. I think he did inquire into the matter enough to make liaison with the current trustee of W1AF license. However, the need for a club room with the prospect of permanence and access to a suitable antenna location was a major obstacle to any progress.

In the Fall of 1949, Jim moved to Adams House and I to Dunster. Both of us on the top floors. I now had a regenerative receiver (probably Jim's also) with which to listen to WlAW for code practice, but there was still no club. It was about March of 1950 as I recall before I finally received the last 65 characters of my code test correctly and was issued W9SWQ. Sometime that year the University decided to use 52 Dunster as a student activity building. It was agreed that we could organize there and that the license and some equipment would be transferred there if we did.

I think the school was as anxious to concentrate their HAM radio nuisance in one place as we were to have a place. If there was any enthusiasm in the administration for reviving W1AF, it was politely concealed. Nevertheless, somebody loved student groups or radio clubs or both and arrangements and preliminaries were completed that Spring. We set up shop there in the Fall of 1950, having been able to recruit members at registration, just like the other student groups. The dream had turned real.

Professor Menzel, mentioned in the Crimson article as our trustee, was interested in radio astronomy. Radio astronomy was an emerging thing then. That department managed to acquire some war surplus equipment, some of which they gave us once we reopened at 52 Dunster Street. I remember in particular an unusual and unfathomable diversity receiver for overcoming problems of skip fade in overseas communication. It occupied an entire 90 inch relay rack, but probably depended on external front end equipment which did not come with it. Scrapping it out kept us in parts for the RFI battles and other repairs.

There was also a marvelous Hammerlund Super Pro SP400 all band receiver which looked like it might have been salvaged from a tank used in North Africa! It had so many tuned circuits that it took two of us two weeks spare time to align it. With that and some new tubes, it worked very well. It was the most useful equipment we inherited.

We also got a transmitter which was was surplus. It had been made in haste for the Air Force along the lines of those described in the ARRL handbook, but it had a bad reputation for spurious signals. When the military got the BC610 they dumped these. I don't remember what it was named and I dare not write what we called it. I think it was rated for 300 Watts and used a single 813 in the output stage. There was an AM modulator and a separate VFO. Potentially it was just right, and anyway it was all we had. The power supply, modulator and output sections were each for 19 inch rack mounting, but it came with a horizontal rack for use on a table top.

There were a number of articles in CQ magazine about how to "cure" this transmitter, although oddly, very few HAMS were using it and the index to QST had no references. We converted the output tank circuit as described by the article which seemed most authoritative and put it on the air. A few days later we got a green ticket from the local FCC office, and W1AF was again silent.

Jim had a spectrum scanner with which you could see all the signals on a band on a CRT. With that and a dummy antenna we could easily see why we had gotten the citation. Our outputs were strong from 3.5 Mhz to as high as our receiver would tune.

A review of other articles and trial of their ideas changed nothing. Finally we started through the design, reviewing and testing everything. Eventually we found the problem. There was a bias supply for the 813 for the correct class C bias and also a grid leak resistor sized to supply the same bias. At double bias, we had a great frequency multiplier! Once this was corrected it worked just fine, although the TVI wars had yet to be won.

One night after finishing my work, my CQ was answered by a strong signal from Wellesley Hills. The contact asked a lot of questions about the club and told me he was a Harvard Alum. Now all Harvard men know that the good things around them come from the alumni, but this was the first potential supporter I had met. He invited some of us to come to his home to see his station and get acquainted. It seemed like the right thing to do so we went at once. He had a fine rig and explained that he no longer needed his Collins 75A1 or commercial transmitter or Collins VFO exciter, and would give them to the University for our use if we could use them. Could we ever! The transmitter gave us a boost in power and the receiver added much to our situation. We now had two complete operating rigs. We wanted to something for him, but he would have nothing to do with notoriety

We received other gifts too. Members and friends helped us build up a respectable collection of training gear and literature and books so that interested students would be encouraged to take up the hobby. We scheduled regular code and theory lessons.

I think I was the first reactivation President, although others were more instrumental in reactivating than I. Jim Hirschman was the second president, for the Spring of 1951. He transferred to Indiana Medical School for the Fall of 1951, and I was again elected president. I transferred to Iowa in the Spring of 1952, and I do not know who succeeded me as president. It may have been Mr. Domizi, as he was one of the more active youngsters. Considering the death threats, FCC green tickets, The Chief of University Police and the other TVI and RFI complaints, it wasn't any great honor to be elected. If the administration had not insisted on our having a president, we would not have had one.

That is about as well as I can answer your questions. While working on this I found a flood of memories, some of which I want to share with you although they are mostly of personal interest.

You should make every effort to learn as much from Jim Hirschman as you can. His was surely the spirit behind the continuation of the club. He has been active on the air since high school days, and has a fine station in Miami today. Considering that he had little need for the club, his commitment to others and to HAM radio is especially appreciated by those of us who so richly benefited.

Chris Davis was a rare individual. He had turned down a Rhodes Scholarship to join the Air Force at the beginning of WW2. A Major, he was in charge of short wave communications for the Air Force on Oahu. At Harvard, he was studying to prepare to teach and I think he finally transferred to the school of Education. He came from Birmingham AL, as I recall, and spoke with a soft, cultured southern accent.

Chris did not care for beer but could drink Canadian Ale by the quart. I climbed the tower at Divinity about 10:00 PM one night and found Chris sprawled on the couch, the picture of debauchery, with a couple of empties nearby. His Collins receiver was spewing forth a torrent of Morse code incomprehensible to me. I spoke to him but he waved me to be still. The receiver stopped and Chris, without moving from the couch, turned on his transmitter and began sending as fast as he had been receiving. I couldn't see how he could until I noticed the paddle of a bug key held between his big and index toes. He could send between 30 and 40 words a minute that way lying on his back half unconscious.

In the Fall of 1951, Chris moved to a house he had rented in Scituate. I went there to help put up the antennas. I suppose the divine life and Chris had to part ways. The Voice of America was building a huge rhombic antenna there because the salt water marsh land made such a good ground plane. Chris was a ground plane addict, so there he went to try it out.

There were all sorts of stories around Scituate about the VOA transmitter testing. People with mixed gold and silver fillings in their teeth could hear the songs or be heard to report the news. Galvanized gutters held forth on political opinions in multiple languages. It did me good to know that the same government which issued green tickets had their own RFI problems to solve. Chris and I considered offering our expert assistance, but after a few Canadian Ales, we thought better of it.

The big club event in 1951 was the 10 meter WAS (worked all states) contest. In 1950 we tried it from Jim's room but missed several of the northeastern states. This gave rise to a grand plan for 1951. We would go to a mountain top, from which we could reach the nearby states with ground wave while still working the many contacts in the city.

I don't know whether this contest is still the same. At that time it was 2 weekends and the score was the product of all states worked times all stations contacted. Some of the members with local knowledge picked the spot, a point East of Keene New Hampshire where state highway 101 goes over a high pass perhaps 2000 feet or more up. It is a grand view to the South. There was a motel of sorts there. The cottage was not winterized but had a wood stove and electricity. The owner agreed to a reservation while warning us that we were crazy to even try it in Winter.

We spent the Fall planning and preparing. We would take the clubs' Collins receiver and Chris's Collins transmitter. We contrived a 10 meter beam with rotor which would break down to ride on cartop carriers. We took electric blankets and such winter clothing as we had.

The first weekend turned warm. Set up was easy and we operated OK, but the warmth spoiled the skip and results were disappointing. One member got his fingers into a closing car door and had to be rushed to Keene for medical exam. He was very brave and returned in bandages to finish the contest. We were glum upon return. Everything would depend on the second weekend and the weather forecasts were threatening.

We skipped class to leave early to beat the storm. It started snowing just as we finished setting up the antenna. By the time we logged in our first contest contact, there was a full blizzard and the temperature was below 0 F. With the stove red hot, the snow seeping through the walls was not melting and piled up on the floor. We crawled into bed and operated from under the electric blanket. But the skip was GREAT! We worked hard around the clock and felt we had a chance to win. By the time the last contact was made, the storm had blown out, leaving 5 feet of snow. Through it all, the New Hampshire highway crews had plowed the road every 15 minutes—very impressive and reassuring. The cars, however were lost under the snow. We probed for them with parts of the antenna until we found them. The next plow to come by pulled them out and waited long enough to be sure they all ran.

It was a grand adventure. I think we won our region and placed close nationally.

The first rig at 52 Dunster required fuse changes to avoid the blackouts which so upset our student neighbors. With the gift of a still larger transmitter, we had to run in a separate feeder circuit and trap it for TVI etc. We commissioned the transmitter and the new power feeder together. Turning on the power supply, the indicating lights and meters lit up. A few adjustments and the grid circuit meter dipped precisely. I hit the transmit switch and all the lights went out in the room and transmitter. O no! Another round of complaints! Then I turned toward the window. I was really stunned. The whole city of Cambridge, or at least what I could see of it, was dark as an Iowa cornfield at midnight.

I couldn't shake the feeling that I had somehow caused this disaster. The stern voice of Dean Bender at indoctrination in Memorial Hall rang clear in my memory. If we acted to tarnish the name of the University we would be expelled immediately without recourse. What next?

By the light of a flashlight we shut down and locked the door, crept downstairs, carefully avoiding the other exiting students, and found our way home. The power was off all over the area for about 6 hours due to an accident at the power station. At least we were not fingered for that one.

The only physical thing I contributed to the club was a dog eared rug for the floor. My Grandmother had used it in her home around 1910 (it may have been old then) and then gave it to my parents and I had literally grown up on it. By the time I came to Cambridge it was too disgraceful for a home but met my need in Weld Hall. At Dunster it had no purpose, so I took it to the club. Sometime around 1976 I stopped to see if the club was still there and was amazed to see that both club and rug were going strong. I hope things have improved, but if they haven't, don't look to me for another one. I gave in 1950.

You didn't ask me what W1AF meant to me, but I'll tell you anyway. It was my opportunity to learn to succeed. We do not learn to succeed from any number of failures or lessons. They don't teach success in class. It is a personal knowledge and we learn it only through successful experience with unstructured real world problems. My W1AF experiences contributed to my self realization, to new directions in my education, my career, my family decisions and my present business success. W1AF was my first big experience with success against odds. I hope it will continue to offer that opportunity to its present and future members. To them I say, pick any challenge you like, and go for the big win!

It has been 36 years since I transmitted my last CQ. I simply became caught up in new and exciting things to do. In respect to communications these included a year studying supervisory control and data acquisition systems and 10 years managing a business in high speed digital multiplexed signaling for industrial control systems. We linked all the conveyors among the several buildings of the Library of Congress under control of one computer center. We coordinated the 5 sections of a Navy floating dry dock, passing RFI immunity tests against the radar transmitters of guided missile cruisers.

We equipped literally dozens of electric generating stations. We controlled and monitored automation for manufacturing rocket fuel (very carefully). We centralized the control of the worlds' largest automated warehouse. We monitored the systems in a hot mine built into an extinct but very warm volcano. We linked the control of one power house of the Grand Coolee Dam to the control room in the other power house on the other side, permitting both to be controlled from one place. We made over 130 systems work reliably under all sorts of conditions. And it all started with satisfying the Chief of University Police and the FCC about that darned surplus transmitter!"

Best regards,

Bill Hampton Ex W9SWQ