The Early Years

Old Main Building, 1889

Amateur Radio and colleges were made for each other. Both foster a drive to learn new things and expand one's horizons. Students at colleges and universities were among the first to experiment with wireless communications and establish the first true Amateur Radio stations. The oldest Amateur Radio organization in the world is the Harvard Wireless Club, founded in 1909. Another university club, the Worcester Polytechnic Institute Wireless Association is the second-oldest Amateur Radio club in the world. An alumnus of the University of Texas at Austin, Dr. George Washington Pierce, class of 1893, was among the founding members of the Harvard Wireless Club, and a professor of physics at that institution from 1903 to 1940. The University of Texas was already making its mark on Amateur Radio in the earliest days.

The University of Texas was established in 1883 to be a "university of the first class". While it succeeded in educating many of the leaders of Texas it did not, for some reason, generate a lasting Amateur Radio tradition on campus at the start of the radio age. When Dr. Pierce left for New England to pursue his interests in physics, including radio, nobody on campus at the University of Texas seems to have picked up where he left off. No records remain of what, if any, clubs or individuals experimented with radio on the UT campus prior to World War I. One long-time Amateur in the Austin area seemed to recall that Amateurs at the University of Texas got on the air before their counterparts at Texas A&M University, whose radio club was founded in 1912. If so, the radio enthusiasts at UT may not have been formally organized in a club or organization at that time. The first known radio club organized on campus only dates back to 1921, when an experimental station license was granted for radio enthusiasts on campus.

The main campus of the University has been filled with talented, intelligent students for generations, so it stands to reason that some Amateur Radio activity must have taken place in the early part of this century. Amateur Radio operations on campus had definitely begun by 1921, with the 5XU experimental station. As enthusiasm for broadcast radio exploded, activity of an Amateur nature seems to have waned. Another ham club station was established in the Electrical Engineering department in the late 1930's and early 1940's before World War II. After the war, hams at the University of Texas organized again, only to lapse into inactivity once more. Finally, in 1960, a lasting organization was established, and the University of Texas Amateur Radio Club has ever since been an active focal point of Amateur Radio activity for the students, faculty, and staff of the University.

5XU

According to the 1922 Cactus Yearbook, a Physics Department sponsored Experimental/Amateur station was put into service on October 1, 1921. Its callsign was 5XU, and it provided a number of services for the central Texas area. The station was used to transmit crop and market reports and also used to receive concert broadcasts from around the country.

5XU served an Amateur role as well. The Cactus article mentions that in one month, 511 pieces of Amateur traffic were passed and that no messages of a commercial nature were handled. Contacts were made with stations around the continental United States, and the station was also reportedly heard in Canada and Hawaii.

A Grebe CR7 receiver, 1918 model

The transmitting equipment at 5XU included a 1-2 KW Marconi ship set, a 1.5 KW Navy Simon set, and a 2 KW DeForest Telephone and Telegraph set which was said to be "one of the largest in the United States." The DeForest transmitter could be used for "C.W., buzzer modulated, or voice transmission." The receivers consisted of Grebe CR6 and a Grebe CR7. The antenna was a seven wire T Type commonly used in those days. The spreaders for the wire were 24 feet long and the steel antenna support masts were 110 feet high and spaced 300 feet apart.

As a freshman at the University of Texas in 1923, Bill Swearingen 5UJ (later W5AQD, then W5UJ) "was not allowed to set foot" in the club station, "but next year the old gang had left, and Dean T.H. Shelby turned it over to us." Bill had been licensed since 1922, when he and his brother, Jim S. Swearingen received the callsign 5UJ for their station in Lockhart. When Bill did get access to the club station in 1924, Amateur Radio stations had just been required to abandon all frequencies below 200 meters, and Bill and company had to rebuild the station, which had been active on 600 meters. According to Bill, the UT club had an experimental station in 1922 with the callsign 5EM. This may have been a second station on campus, or second callsign for the 5XU station. Bill made frequent contact with 5EM that year, first on spark and then on CW.

Notes from a Talk that Bill Swearingen W5UJ was planning to make in the 1970's to QCWA Chapter 67 in Austin, TX. [Thanks to Keith Zimmermann K5WX]

The Cactus article and notes that Bill 5UJ prepared for a presentation to the Quarter Century Wireless Association (QCWA) Chapter 67 (Austin, TX) both confirm UT Amateurs played a part in an early voice broadcast of a Texas-Texas A&M football game in 1925. The story states that on the site where Painter Hall now stands, a station was set up to make contact with Amateurs at Texas A&M in College Station. The Longhorns were taking on the Aggies, and play by play information about the game was sent to Austin via Amateur Radio. In Austin, a crowd gathered to hear the game, which was recreated on a megaphone by one of the Amateurs. According to the Cactus, 5XU received requests from other stations for game updates and forwarded the information to stations in Laredo and a ship in the Gulf of Mexico. The game ended in a 0-0 tie. The Cactus article mentions this one game, but Bill's notes say that the UT club "broadcast the last few football games of the season, believed to be the first voice broadcasts of football in Texas. Texas A&M had been broadcasting Thanksgiving day games in Morse code before that."

According to W5UJ's notes, the UT club station broadcast not just athletic events, but "market reports and special events, such as governors' inauguration balls." Bill lost his license before he graduated, but was re-licensed in the late 1920's as W5AQD. He served in World War II in the Army Airways Communication System (AACS,) stationed at HQ, Bolling Field, Washington D.C., and later in India as Commanding Officer of the 10th AACS Group, where Bill was in charge of stations at 26 Air Bases. Bill received the Amateur callsign W5UJ in 1946 and remained active on HF SSB and VHF FM in the Austin, TX area for much of the rest of the twentieth century.

W5GJC

W5GJC QSL card

Frank Cage W5EUN was a student at the University in the late 1930's. He had a station on the air starting about 1935 with the callsign W5EUN, and was active off and on until he graduated in 1941 with a BSEE degree, majoring in electrical power engineering. Frank doesn't remember much about the radio club on campus at the time, and was apparently not very active in it himself, but did make a QSO with Paul German W5HBH, who was operating from the U.T. club station, and received a QSL card for the contact with station W5GJC. Paul was a good friend of Frank, and Paul returned to the University after the second World War to earn a PhD in Electrical Engineering.

Frank W5EUN also recalls that in the 1930's, the Electrical Engineering department would put on annual "Power Shows" to display the miracles of modern electrical engineering. He remembers displays of sound carried by light beams, facsimile transmission and reception, climbing electric arcs, interesting rotating machinery, and a 100,000 ohm resistor (with the humorous warning label "DANGER DO NOT TOUCH!!!") He attended one of these shows in 1934 and was duly impressed.

According to UT student Jim Headrick W5CPB (now W3CP,) the head of the Electrical Engineering labs, E.H. Schulz, decided in the 1938-1939 school year that the University needed a vacuum tube research lab, and an Amateur Radio Club and station. At the time, the Electrical Engineering Department concentrated on power generation and distribution; there was a telephone course and a course on lighting, but nothing on electronics. Jim remembers that he actually had more Mechanical Engineering credits than Electrical Engineering credits in satisfying the requirements for an Electrical Engineering degree!

The University of Texas campus, ca. 1935

The Amateur Radio Club station W5GJC was located in the Electrical Engineering research lab space in Taylor Hall. Jim built the club station's transmitter, which included an 852 tube in the final stage, producing about 500 watts input. Steve Kershner W5FZD built the receiver, a superhet design using plug-in coils. The antenna was a 135 foot long dipole strung up over the Engineering Building. Jim graduated shortly after the station was put together, and can not confirm whether the station or club ever got much further. In addition to Jim and Paul German W5HBH, another active student ham at the time was Bud Richter W5FBD, later K6ABQ. In any event, the club would have ceased on-the-air activities with the commencement of World War II.

While at the University, Jim W5CPB operated both from the campus station that he helped build, and from his own QTH in Austin. Jim enjoyed chasing DX and operating in contests. Using his own station, Jim won the West Gulf division in the 1937 ARRL November Sweepstakes. His gear was entirely home-built, and the transmitters of the time were all crystal-controlled, which made contacts much more difficult to make.

The 1940s

Information concerning Amateur Radio on the UT campus immediately after World War II comes from George "Zeke" Harvey W5NFC . Zeke first came to Austin to go to UT in July of 1943. He left Austin in March of 1944 to join the Army Signal Corps, but returned to study Electrical Engineering after being discharged from the service in May of 1946. Zeke learned CW while in the military, and used this knowledge to pass his "B" license exam in May, 1947.

Around that time, Zeke joined up with an informal group of Hams associated with UT. No official organization existed on campus at that time. The group met occasionally to swap stories and exchange ideas. Some of the members of the group included engineering student Dan Scholfield W5JMJ, local youngster Pat Rose (now W5OZI), grad student John Allred W5LST, Jim Boutwell W5LDA, and Jack McGuire W5IIK who was in charge of the Communications Department at UT.

Several Amateurs on campus at that time built stations. Two of those stations were both in the old Physics building (Painter Hall PAI, present-day home of Biological Sciences and Computer Sciences.) John Allred W5LST had a setup in the basement of the south wing that included a two element beam antenna on the roof. On the fourth floor of the north wing of the building graduate student George Bradburn (call?) constructed a formidable multi-KW station.

On to the 1950s >>>