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Brackenridge Hall Dormitory (BHD)

Despite the fact that the University of Texas Amateur Radio Club provided a well-equipped station for many years, a large number of students have wanted to be able to get on the air from home as well. In the last few years, many students have brought their VHF handhelds with them to school, but more interesting is the things some students would do to get on the air with less mobile equipment.

The oldest personal station that we know much about belonged to Jim Headrick W5CPB (now W3CP), who attended the University from the fall of 1936 through the spring of 1939. Jim rented a room near campus, and set up a station from which he chased DX and entered many radio contests. The rig had a '59 Tritet crystal oscillator driving an RK20, and it could be operated on the 80, 40, and 20 meter bands. The receiver was a TRF, regen detector, and audio. Jim was an electrical engineering major, and had to build all of his own equipment just to get on the air. His antenna was a single end-fed 80 meter half-wave wire hung in the trees outside his room. Using this station, Jim successfully passed by his fellow EE lab members W5DBR and W5FZD and won the West Gulf Division in the 1937 ARRL November Sweepstakes, then a 96 hour long CW contest.

Walter B. Fair, jr. WN5CLS (now KE5WJ) lived in the Beauford H. Jester Center in 1970. His dorm room was on the fourth floor, where he had a Knightkit T-60 transceiver and a Hallicrafters SX-99 receiver. Needing an antenna of some sort, Walter bribed a janitor with a six-pack of beer to get a key to open the window, then ran a wire out of the window and across the courtyard to the laundry room. He took the vent off the dryer and tied off the end of the wire to it, then put the dryer vent back on so it wasn't noticed. Walter tuned the wire with a homemade L network and used surplus crystals that were being trashed by the Communications Department. They had some old surplus stuff that included crystals cut for around 6900 kHz. Walter used Comet Cleanser to grind them up in frequency to the 40 meter novice band, and tripled them up to 15 meters. With this station, Walter earned his Worked All States (WAS) award, and also worked about 30 countries. He also operated in the Novice Roundup from the dorm room.

Henry Calk WN5IIB (now WB5IIB) set up a novice station in his Brackenridge Hall Dormitory room in December, 1972. He used a Heathkit DX-40 transmitter with a Drake 2-C receiver to work at least 18 states on 40 Meters alone.

Jon Dahm WB5PCV and George Haysler WB5NCF lived in the Moore Hall Dormitory in the early 1970's. Their room happened to be near the roof so they set up quite an impressive station. They used a Heathkit DX-40 CW transmitter with a surplus military receiver for HF. Their VHF equipment consisted an Icom rig for two meters, an RT-70 for six meters FM, and a Gonset Communicator for six meters AM. On the roof, they managed to install a long-wire antenna and an 11 element two meter yagi using a broomstick as a mast, which they stuck in a drain vent. John and George used a little ingenuity to make the most out of their shack, but they never solved the problem of a good ground. During thunderstorms, sparks would fly from the coax plug to the AC plug in the back of their work desk. It was said to have been neat to see at night!

Around the same time, Kelley Pace WB5LCE lived in the Beauford H. Jester Center dormitory and figured out a way to get on the air from there as well. Jester is notorious for being an RF-tight box, so Kelley had to have an external antenna to get any acceptable results. His solution was to patiently drill a small hole in his window so as not to shatter or crack the glass. He fed a long wire through the opening, and sloped it from his 10 ^th story room to a tree below. Kelley concealed the hole from the dorm inspectors by covering it with a U.S. Marine Corps bumper sticker. The hole through the decal merely looked like a minor tear, and did not call attention to itself in the way a hole in the middle of a window pane would have. It was truly an invisible antenna, both inside and outside. It reportedly worked great.

Beyond the 40 Acres >>>