San Antonio Express-News
October 27, 1963

San Antonio Express-News Oct 27, 1963 article

Ross (Club President) - K5ZSJ
Richard - soon WN5IXV and now KK5HP
Paul - WN5FWT then and now W9PL
(6-m Lafayette HE-45b rig loaned by a 1962 graduate, K5AUW)

JEFF HAMS AT WORK

Gabbing Put to Use

By BILL VOLLMER

   San Antonio teen-agers who spend a lot of time on the phone could learn a thing or two from a group of Jefferson High School students who do their chatting on radio.

   These boys, members of the radio section of the Bi-Phy-Chem Club at the high school spent 18 hours talking and listening Saturday.

   Joseph Andrews, a physics teacher at the school and sponsor of the section, explained: "The boys got together some radio sets at the home of a member, Richard Joseph of 427 Gettysburg Rd., and spent 18 hours seeing how many amateur radio operators they could contact."

   The teacher said the marathon operation was part of a national contest sponsored by the QSO Club of Pasadena, Calif., in which high school radio clubs all over the nation try to accumulate points by contacting as many radio operators as they can.  The clubs could pick any 18 hours between midnight Thursday and midnight Saturday to stay on the air.

   Ross Pounders, 17, one of the 15 boys who gathered at the backyard "radio station," explained:

   "Many of the operators we have contacted have been near San Antonio, and a lot of them have mobile units - ham radio sets right in their cars."

   Paul Lemson, 16, took off his earphones long enough to explain, "As night comes on we'll be able to hear farther and farther away.  Right now we are listening on the 40-meter band and we have heard hams in Florida, Arizona, California, and Mexico."

   The Jefferson High School boys stayed on the air from 6 a.m. to midnight Saturday and by late Saturday had accumulated about 34 points - although they were handicapped by a faulty antenna.

   Andrews said, "The boys are getting a lot of experience to compete in the QSO Club's next competition, scheduled sometime next spring.  The number of points they get for each contact depends whether it is in or out of state and what band they contact the party on."

   "The boys are having a lot of fun, learning about radio and working toward getting the novice radio operator's licenses," Andrews said.


Not yet being licensed, I just brought along my Philmore CR-5AC as a "spare" h.f. set
just in case that it was needed (it wasn't).  This was nearing the solar minimum so the
upper h.f. bands were poor (though I can recall hearing Radio Nederland there on 13-m).
For better or worse, the HE-45b impressed me.  K5AUW had arrived with it after K5ZSJ's
homebrew 6-m transmitter failed to work.  The antenna was just a dipole strung between
two moveable volleyball net support poles (cement in tires), but QSO's up to 20 miles
were made with it.  For another (better) photo of the event from our 1964 Monticello
Yearbook (page 235).  (L-R, Jimmy Wise, later WA5KBP; K5ZSJ; future-WN5IXV; I'm totally
obscured up against the reed curtain!  Not exactly a high-tech ground on the left either.)

San Antonio Light
May 25, 1964

San Antonio Light May 25, 1964 article

Robert (not from our school) - now WA5JDU (of 10-X fame)
Raymond - then WA5FEC

Radio Contacts

A Ham's Field Day

   A group of fellas were hamming it up on the North Side.

   And it could them national recognition.

   The group was the Jefferson Radio Club, nine students who attend Thomas Jefferson High School.  They were participating as ham, or amateur, radio operators in National QSO Field Day.

   The field day, a competition to determine how many radio contacts a single radio club can make during an 18 hour period, is sponsored by the Pasadena Calif. Radio Club.

   QSO is the designation for a radio contact.

   The San Antonio club will submit verifications of contacts to the Pasadena club and the latter will tabulate the verifications with certain handicaps, taking into consideration the amount of power generated by portable ham units and the location of the transmitter.

   The Jefferson club's hamming took place at 1611 W. Mulberry, home of Al Jiminez, a member of the club.


WA5FWT/5 

Jefferson High School Radio Club
San Antonio, TX

operation in the Pasadena City College Radio Club
biannual contest for College and High School Radio Clubs

from 1611 West Mulberry
San Antonio, TX
(home of a non-licensed club member, Al Jiminez)
===============================================================
50-MHz log

HE-45a, 12-w am input, xtals, into (K5DSF) homebrew 3-e Yagi
(made of rugged steel conduit - DE dipole fed with coax balun)
on mast (jointed irrigation pipe) supported by tree in backyard
with manual rotation

(WA5IYX, WA5FWT ops)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 23, 1964 (CST)

1035 CQ           50.400
1040 CQ           50.238
1040 K5ZJA        50.238/50.300   1044      (Duke)              1
1045 CQ           50.238
1048 CQ           50.238
1055 CQ           50.238
1056 K5VTS        50.238/>50.300  no QSO
1058 CQ           50.238
1103 WA5JLT       50.400          1116      (Jim)               2
1103 WA5EJB       50.400          1116      (Oscar)             3
1117 CQ           50.238
1119 CQ           50.238
1120 WA5EYG       50.400          1129      (Charles)           4
1130 WA5IYW       50.400          1141      (Ed)                5
1146 CQ           50.400
1149 CQ
1155 K5PIB        50.400          no QSO
1156 K5PIB        50.400          no QSO
1157 CQ           50.400
1158 CQ           50.400
1202 CQ           50.400
1208 CQ           50.400
1210 WA5GAG       50.400          1214                          6
1215 CQ-DX        50.124
1216 K4WIL        50.400          no QSO
1224 CQ-DX        50.124
1254 K4CNB        50.238          1259      (Ned) St.Pete., FL  7
1300 CQ-DX        50.124
1301 K4WLI        50.400          1305      (Al)                8
1310 CQ-DX        50.400
1313 CQ-DX        50.238
1315 WA5FEC/5     50.xxx                    (Ray)               9
1325 W5GLN/5      50.xxx                    (August)           10
1358 CQ           50.124
1400 CQ           50.124
1426 WA5BXP/5     50.238                    (Bob)              11
1458 W5DLW        50.xxx                    (Reno)             12
1500 WA5ERV       50.xxx                                       13
1521 CQ           50.400
1527 WA5CBW       50.xxx                    (Bill)             14
1540 W5BAK        50.xxx          154?      (Phil)             15
1607 W5EXZ/5      50.xxx          1622      (John)             16
1624 CQ           50.400
1631 CQ           50.400
1633 K5DSF        50.xxx          1649      (Carl)             17
1724 CQ           50.400
1726 CQ           50.124
1805 WA5CBW       50.xxx
1845 CQ           50.124
1932 W5MHC        50.124                    (Hank)             18
1934 K5HYF        50.124                    (Hank)             19  2nd call
1936 W5BAI        50.124                    (Hank)             20  XYL call
2009 K5VTS        50.400/>50.400            (Ed)               21
2131 W5ILT        50.400                    (Luke)             22
2210 W5IRQ        50.238/>50.400            (Thad)             23  SARC Pr.
2247 K5BJB/5      50.xxx                                       24

local Q's worth 2 points, DX = 50, so 6-m score = 144 points
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
   The local QSO comments ranged from "Why the different call?" (from
those who knew my voice after 5 months on the air) to "Aren't you
guys about a month too early?" (re the June ARRL FD).

   A passing rain shower once during the day caused a blanket to be
hastily thrown over the rig - this set up was on the back patio,
that newspaper photo was of the (sheltered) front porch area.
A h.f. vertical with its counterpoise wires filled the front yard,
with an inverted-V along the west side of the house.

   I'd brought along my SX-110 as a "spare" h.f. receiver but only
managed to get its planetary main tuning dial warped from being
in too much direct sunlight (resulting in the #47 pilot lights
then scorching it)!

   In the waning hours of the operation the Jr and Sr club members
(K5ZSJ, WA5FEC, and WA5FWT - "Fierce Wild Texan") had rather just
vanished - as I much later found out, to go to some go-cart track.
(K5ZSJ would graduate in 6 days; 2 years later I knew the feeling!)

   With me just a Tech op and 6-m "worked out" (aka, stone dead) the
rest of us there watched some of the James Dean film "Rebel Without
a Cause" on the Jiminez family TV thru their patio-facing windows.

   The next three events were held on the grounds of the Jefferson Methodist Church/School right across (south) from the High School.  We couldn't operate from our school proper since that would have required some $ to have a maintenance custodian on duty there during the weekend, and our club treasury was never overflowing!

October 24, 1964

   This was the same weekend as the CQWW DX Phone contest.  6-m remained totally dead.

   They somehow managed to get access to our school and wanted to check out the ancient (conglomeration of military surplus) rig for 75-m.  I was tasked with listening for it on a Drake-2B.  That soon got boring so I decided to tune across 15-m (this was at the sunspot minimum) and found a ZL and a CR6 QRMing each other!  The Johnson Ranger II was all tuned up for 75-m or it might have been VERY tempting.

   When the "qualified" ops got back 15-m was put to good use, though mostly W1-3, a KL7, and an LU.  (My h.f. SWL experience was giving good guidance.)  The antenna for all this was just a dipole strung up between two lightpoles on the church grounds.

May 22, 1965 - WA5FEC/5

   I missed out on this one as I was in the final recovery stages of my bout with pneumonia.  Of course, this would be the one that they managed to get TV news footage coverage of!  WA5JDU was a "guest" operator for the 6-m position at first, then WA5JPT (also not from our school!), with almost a year of experience on the band, took over.

October 23, 1965 - WA5MCU/5

   For a few hours that morning I was across the street in my school cafeteria taking the PSAT.  My Senior Councilor was aghast that I had not taken it sooner as a NMSQT Semi-Finalist.

WA5IYX - Oct 23, 1965 photo
WA5IYX at the 6-m position
(taken by WA5MCU, now K5EI)
A much younger (and thinner) version of WA5IYX!  Note the Utica 650A's inverted vfo and the
cooling fan.  One could keep a meal warm on that chrome cabinet.  6-m had managed to stay
totally dead once again.

May 1, 1966

   A real anti-climax to three years of these events.  Not only was the weather rainy, but the venue was on the grounds of another local high school (Holmes) and used their WA5PEY for the call!  With "senioritis" setting in (May 19 graduation), I was a no-show.
For any Jeff Alumni, a 32-second RealAudio clip of the school song (64-k).
(made from the 45-rpm record in the 1960 Monticello Yearbook)

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Page Created: September 2, 2000
Last Modified: June 21, 2012