The Toppled Towers of Wilder

A familiar feature of the Hanover skyline disappeared in early April when the windmill towers that had served the Dartmouth Radio Association as antenna supports since May 1923 were removed from the roof of Wilder Hall. Four men and a crane with a boom 184 feet long managed the removal. With skillful manipulation, the men fastened tackle to the top of a tower, gently raised it from its roof-top moorings, swung it to one side, and carefully laid it on the lawn near Shattuck Observatory.

The event was inevitable. Improvements in antenna design and electronic circuitry had made the towers obsolete. Their age and apparent flimsiness rendered them potential hazards, especially to the tall glass-curtained Core Building now under construction between Steele, Wilder, and the new Fairchild Halls. The architects were happy to see the towers come down, for their steel framework would have extended far above the Core and spoiled its planned dominance over the Physical Sciences Center.

Fifty years ago, under the direction of the late Dr. Elliot B. White of the English Department, and Robert F. Weinig, then a recently transferred student from Wittenberg College, the two 90-foot windmill towers were erected by members of the Dartmouth Radio Association in ten afternoons without the aid of a crane or other large mechanical equipment, an extraordinary feat as compared with the speed of many work crews of today. The students received athletic credit for their efforts.

The Dartmouth Radio Association is one of the oldest college organizations for radio amateurs in the country. As early as 1908 wireless telegraphic signals were received in Wilder Hall. Six years later a "sender" was added so that two-way communication became possible over limited distances. Profs, Gordon F. Hull and Norman E. Gilbert offered courses and lectures in the science of wireless telegraphy and encouraged their students to acquire experience in this newly developing field. Interest became so great that by March 24, 1917, fifty-two students, with Professor Hull as their adviser, organized the original Dartmouth Radio Association, more familiarly known as the Radio Club. But within a few weeks, with the entry of the United States into World War I, all amateur stations were ordered dismantled. The students were to become radio telegraphers for the armed forces.

The government restrictions were not lifted until October 1919. Immediately, student veterans with wartime experience in radiotelegraphy set about reviving amateur radio at Dartmouth. They built new receiving and transmitting facilities and obtained Class 4 - Technical and Training License No. 77 with the call letters 1YB. Their first postwar contact was made with station 3NB of Vineland, N.J., on February 29, 1920. The Radio Club was reestablished at first as an informal organization; but by September 1923 it had adopted a constitution and bylaws as a refounded Dartmouth Radio Association. With the exception of a few years during World War II, when the government again closed down virtually all amateur stations, this organization has been more or less active ever since.

In the early twenties not only were new electronic circuits for transmitters and receivers continually being devised and tested but also higher and higher frequency bands were being tried with the objective of improving the fidelity and increasing the distance of communication. The need for new quarters to house 1YB and high towers for its antennas grew out of these early investigations. In the fall of 1922 the Radio Club with the aid of Professor Hull sought permission and funds from President Hopkins to build a "radio shack" and towers on the roof of Wilder Hall. By May 1923 these structures were in place and a new transmitter and receiver, that had been designed and built under the supervision of Mr. Weinig, were put into operation. The radio amateurs at Dartmouth immediately began making contacts (QSOs) with other amateurs throughout the country and in foreign lands. One of the highlights of this period occurred in October 1923 when 1YB made contact and served as a relay station for Admiral MacMillan on the schooner Bowdoin during its voyage to the Arctic.

To broaden its experimental program the Dartmouth Radio Association in 1924 obtained a Class 3 - Experimental License with the call letters 1XAV but allowed it to expire the following year. Meanwhile it requested permission to build and operate a radio broadcast station. The lukewarm response to this request is suggested by Professor Hull who wrote several years afterwards: "With some reluctance the Administration of the College and the Physics Department acquiesced to the proposal." The radio "amateurs" obtained a commercial broadcast license with the call letters WFBK, later WDCH, but this venture also folded by the fall of 1925.

The laws for licensing amateur radio stations were revised by Congress in 1927. License No. 3, one of the first under the new act for both radiotelegraphy and radiotelephony, was issued to the Dartmouth Radio Association with call letters W1YB, where W signifies a station in the United States and 1 a station specifically in the New England region. Two years later the statute was further modified by requiring the issuance of a station license to a responsible licensed operator. At this time Professor Hull obtained the first license for W1ET in his name and for a few years W1YB and W1ET operated together. By 1932 the license for WIYB expired and thereafter the Dartmouth Amateur Radio Station has been known solely by the call letters W1ET.

Throughout all these years the windmill towers on the roof of Wilder Hall served steadfastly through calm and storm as supports for a variety of antennas that made possible nearly instant communication by both code and voice with "radio hams" on every continent (WAC), in every state of the United States (WAS), and in more than 130 countries throughout the world (DX Century Club).

Let this be said of them: Through their antenna wires the whole world has heard a voice crying in the wilderness CQ CQ CQ W1ET W1ET W1ET CQ CQ CQ Dartmouth Radio calling.

Professor of Physics

Down for good are the Dartmouth RadioAssociation's towers atop Wilder Hall. Thewhite radio shack is between them.