The 1960s

Zeke W5NFC, a radio amateur for over 50 years (photo 1998)

In 1960, there were many licensed student Amateurs at the University of Texas at Austin, but the Longhorn Amateur Radio Club W5NLH of the previous decade had dissolved. Many of these students found their way to the house of Zeke Harvey W5NFC, an alumnus who had been active with W5NLH before working on a multi-year Arctic expedition for the military.

One of these hams was Carl Zetner W5HFG. He saw the need for an official group on the UT campus and began looking into the proper procedures to start a group with the Campus Activities Office in the Texas Union. In the process of creating the group, Carl ran into Mac Lingo K5DKA on campus, who also just happened to be trying to do the same thing, but starting with the Electrical Engineering department. They joined their efforts, found the support of other UT hams, including freshman Bill Hickox K5BDZ, and quickly got the "Texas Union Amateur Radio Society" recognized as an official UT campus organization in the spring of 1960. Mac Lingo was elected the first club president. Other prominent early members included Carl Zettner W5HFG, Jerry Brown K5AIL, Dale Rowden K5RNW, Rick Noller K5PTS, Pete Morey K5ERF, Bob Proffitt (call?) and Philip White K5GJV (later W5PCW).

Early club organization was informal and the activities sometimes irreverent. Carl W5HFG and several other club members often enjoyed hidden transmitter hunts and picked out-of-the-way places in which to hold them. Occasionally, members of the club brought dates along with them in the their cars as they drove around looking for transmitters. On one occasion, a person hid the transmitter in the middle of the Austin municipal garbage dump south of town (near Manchaca.) Their dates were not amused, and Carl recalls that he never again saw the girl he was with that night. Phil White K5GJV also remembers a transmitter hunt where the transmitter was hidden on a raft in Lake Austin! Phil reports that many of the hams at the time ended up marrying the dates they took with them transmitter hunting!

The club has often helped get students and faculty members licensed and on the air. Sometimes, this was done through formal license classes, sometimes through personal elmering. The club station and study materials also served as an incentive to get a license or upgrade. Over the years, the club has used a variety of equipment to teach Morse Code. Today, audio CDs and computer programs provide much of the practice. In the 1960's, however, neither of these technologies were available. So, members like Barton Smith WA5YHO (now N6HDN) learned Morse on a paper tape code practice machine that the club then owned. By 1965, the club had also purchased a Hallicrafters keyer that was used in Morse code classes. Phil White K5GJV passed his Novice license test at an exam session in 1962, administered by Carl Zettner W5HFG and Jerry Brown K5AIL held in Carl's room in Weiler House on Rio Grande Street, west of campus.

Bill Kirkpatrick K5TTF was a member of the club from 1963-1967. He recalls that the club "wasn't wildly active during these years," but that many members participated in the 7290 kHz Traffic Net using the W5EHM station. Another popular activity was hanging out at the Dripping Springs station of Morgan Richards W5HBM. He kept a refrigerator full of Pearl beer, and several times club members had to spend the night because they couldn't drive back across the goat ranch to the highway. In addition to the free beer, W5HBM had a Collins S-Line and a very tall tower with a triband yagi, equipment that the UTARC club station at the time did not enjoy.

The membership and activities of the University of Texas Amateur Radio Club have continued, without interruption, to this day. The new club applied for a callsign and received W5EHM, a call previously held by another Amateur in Texas (Joe Patterson, later W5VY, now SK.) The club would use this callsign for the next 37 years.

MARS Station

AN GRC/9 AM/CW military transceiver

UTARC was not the only Amateur Radio related group on campus in the early 1960's. Stuart Rohre K5KVH was approached by the campus Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) unit to establish a Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS) station on campus in 1963. Since Stuart was the only licensed Amateur in the group, he became the station trustee for the callsign W5KVR.

The group set up a shack on one of the upper floors of the west side of Russell A. Steindam Hall (RAS), the ROTC building. A surplus AN GRC/9 AM/CW transceiver was obtained from Camp Mabry, and a dipole antenna was strung up between two wings of the building, from one window sill to another. Early operations required the use of a hand cranked generator for power until an AC power supply could be built. Plans for the station included a better antenna setup. Someone found a source of old oil field casings in nearby Luling, TX, to be used as antenna supports. They did manage to get them to the ROTC building, but could not get them on the roof. They were extremely heavy, and were abandoned behind the Navy gun turret near the building's entrance.

The station was used to check into a variety of MARS nets and had help from several UTARC members. A number of non-licensed ROTC members also took part in the operations; the most famous of those was Kay Bailey, who later became U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Stuart ran the station throughout the spring of 1963 before leaving the University. Stuart would later serve a tour of duty with the Peace Corps in Malaysia, where he held a license and the callsign 9M2SM. What became of W5KVR after Stuart's tenure over the station remains a mystery.

UTARC participated in Navy MARS to some extent in the late 1960's. It held the callsign N0LYK for a while, although nothing specific about its activities is yet known.

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