Amateur Radio Club Enjoying a Revival

SINCE writing my last article in this magazine (December '59) discussing the deplorable state of the Dartmouth Amateur Radio Association I am happy to say that we have come a long way on the road to recovery. Probably the most spectacular accomplishment was our successful communication with a Chicago station by bouncing signals off an aurora borealis display.

Other notable achievements included winning the International Sweepstakes Contest with a total of over 600 stations contacted in a forty-hour period. To win this contest the station was on the air for approximately twenty straight hours on two consecutive weekends. Progress has also been reflected in our membership which has risen from three my freshman year to 21 last year. Similarly, the value of equipment the club owns has grown from about $30 to more than $5,000.

The reason for the club's rapid growth can be directly attributed to the support given us by those anxious to see the club attain and surpass its former standard. Thanks to A. Frank Rothschild '37 we now have what is generally considered to be the best single-sideband exciter and receiver available. William Schweitzer donated what is probably the best AM transmitter ever built commercially for amateur use. These men and some generous club members have made possible the fine nucleus of equipment which WIET now has.

It is our hope that before too long Dartmouth will have the best college radio station anywhere. We believe that to date the club has made rapid progress towards this goal. With more backing of the kind that has helped us so greatly to date, we would like to set up an amateur teletype station before the end of the year and we hope in the future to go into television, facsimile and more experimental modes of communication.