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.)
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/5Jefferson 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.
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.