We're still researching the club's history by digging through files and contacting alumni. If you're an alumnus/alumnae and we haven't yet talked with you, please let us hear from you! 

 Here's what we know so far. 

 1930s
The club's callsign W4ATC first appears in the callbook in 1931, so it's likely it was licensed in 1930. It was interesting to discover that in the 1920s there was a station licensed to the Electrical Engineering Dept. at UNC-Chapel Hill (4WE, then W4WE), which disappeared from the callbooks just as W4ATC appeared. Did that club become W4ATC when some of the engineering programs were moved to NC State College between the wars? 

 From a February 1995 interview with Ed McGowan W4BKG (Class of 1935), we learned that the club operated in its early years from the first floor of the Chemistry building, using a club-built rig (with parts actually screwed into a wooden board!) that fed a Zepp antenna using twin lead separated by wooden dowels. All contacts in those days were on CW. Mr. McGowan was licensed in 1931 and learned about ham radio from an elmer in Wilmington, NC, who converted marine rigs for amateur use. 

 In March 1996 H.G. Gwaltney W4IF wrote by email from Portsmouth, VA, with memories of the club from the 1930s. He says the QSL card from 1932-33 "listed members calls on the card. As I recall the sponsor was Prof. Caveness, W4DW (the chemistry Prof.), Joe Abernathy, W4AKC (Elec Eng) Wilson Lamb W4BOH (Chem Eng), Ed McGowen, W4BKG (Elec Eng), Wm. C. Harris, W4WX (Elec Eng and brother of C.D. Harris, W4LYV), H.G.Gwaltney, W4IF (Elec Eng). 

 "Caveness was the NC ARRL Section Communications Manager and involved the club in being a part of the NC Floating club. One sunday each month a city club acted as host and amateurs from all over the state met there. The W4ATC members thought a section news letter was needed to report the meeting events and schedules ... so we began to publish a section bulletin called The Tarheel Ham. I think Caveness published the bulletin in later years. 

 "Some time around 1935-36 the Chemistry folk reclaimed our meeting room in their building and we were forced to move the station to a broom closet on the first floor of 1911. As you might imagine, activity was nil. Aroung 1936-37 Prof. Wm. Hande Browne, EE Dept. Head, gave us permission to move to a room on the first floor of the Physics-Electrical Bldg. One of the Raleigh hams, Harry Wiggs, W4ANU donated wire so that we could erect a zep 80 meter half wave antenna. It was a beaut streching from the EE bldg. to the Zoology bldg. It worked well as "Dutch" Harris spent lots of Saturday nights working dx with that breadboard low power rig of ours." 

 H.F. "Mike" Riley W1AQS (1939) wrote in February 1996 via email to share his experiences with the club: "Most of what spare time I had was spent at the Radio Club in Daniels getting bitten by the Ham Radio bug. Ernest J. Angelo was president and other classmate members were: Charles D. Harris W4LYV, Charles M. Sturkey W7TNA, and Everet F. Smith. 

 "Jimmy Angelo was a great guy and a fine technician who could maintain, repair or modify the big, old H.B. rack-mounted rig and the H.B. super regen rcvr. After graduating he went into academia becoming a Prof.in E.E. at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and authored a couple of text books. Last I heard, he was at Bell Labs. 

 "Charlie Sturky had been a shipboard wireless op before coming to State and kept a sked with shipmate every weekend wherever the ship was located. He left the Navy as a full Commander after WW2 and is married to a former WAVE who was also a three striper and is a General Classs ham. 

 "I was able in 1943 to visit Ev Smith when I was driving to work at Oak Ridge from Engineering R&D at the U. of Chicago. He was working in Terre Haute at the time." 

 1950s
Reggie Cilvik W4DIV informs us that 1955-57 the club was operating a Viking Ranger (about 50 watts) and a Hammarlund Hq109 into a dipole antenna fed with open-spaced feeder line, perhaps from Pullen Hall. When Reggie was a member the school was known as the NC State College of Agriculture and Engineering. He remembers spending "some very nice hours chatting on the radio." 

 James Chatham W4TNF was a member from 1955-58 and remembers the shack being located on the 2nd floor of a red brick building that faced Hillsborough Street and which also housed the Sociology Department. "The club station was a home brew in the classic 6-foot cabinet, although this cabinet had open sides and back...." He suspects the rig was an 813 with about 450 watts. 

W.K. Harding K4AHK ('61) k4ahk@ix.netcom.com writes "I have many fond memories of the shack in the old 1911 bldg. My first novice QSO was made from this station in the fall of 1954 - I still have the log book. I was also Sec-Treas for a while but can't remember which year! 73 es good luck to all." 

1960s
In April 1996 Ed Harris K4UHJ wrote about his recollections of operating with the club's barefoot Johnson Ranger (1960-65). The shack was then on the top floor of the 1911 Building. 

"Bill Austin III was once with me in the shack when I was operating. I was calling CQ Rutherford County, NC (my home county). I was pronouncing Rutherford as "Rullerferd". Bill asked me why I was saying "Rullerferd". I told him that that was the way the "locals" (Rutherford County-ites) pronounced it...." Ed also recalled fellow ham George Bostian, who was living in Bragaw Hall. "I am active on the air almost daily. I can be found about every other day beginning at about UTC 0500 hours on 3.762 mhz. I would enjoy hearing from any W4ATC type." 

 Richard Spangler WA4LQS wrote to tell us about working with a Heathkit SB-102, as well as a 5kw generator that Rusty Elliot (WB4RYB, SK) had had managed to procure, which was used for participation in a January SET from a tent in front of the 1911 Building. Max Treece WG4Z (ex WA4SOZ) recalls that there was a matching linear to go with the SB-102 and the shack at this time was located on the top floor of the 1911 building facing the Bell Tower. "That building may have been one of the few buildings where we could stretch out an 80 meter dipole lengthwise on the roof." 

Marion Hales, K4RWI, remembers "The club purchased a NC303 during the early 60s which made a fine replacement for the aging Hammarlund HQ129X they had used for so long. I also recall the phonetics being "America's Toughest College"."

 1970s
Kent McCorkle AE4Y "operated from W4ATC from 1970-71. At the time, there were only 2 or 3 of us who operated with any regularity from the station. We operated in a couple of the major contests, but didn't mount much of a challenge. 

 "The equipment at that time consisted of the Heathkit SB-400 transmitter, SB-300 receiver, and SB-200 linear. We also had an old Hallicrafters HX-50 transmitter that I never saw used. The antennas were a trap dipole and a Hy-Gain tribander. The station was located in the 1910 Building." 

 Ray Collins WX3A sent us a nice email message in Fall 1996 with a lot of information about the club during his years at State: 

 "Congratulations on the club's 60th anniversary. I was in the club (and State, of course) from 1970-74 (I'm class of '75, thanks to one course). I was the editor of the ARC NEWS for all of those years, and I guess I was the founder of the thing. In 1973, Mike Kersenbrock, WB4IOJ, became the club's first recipient of Ham of the Year for the club. I was its second recipient. I hope the plaque we created is still around. 

 "We had a very active club. We won the PA QSO Party in either 1971 or 72 (maybe it was 1970). After that, the contest sponsor banned multiop stations from winning the state, which, to be honest, was only fair. 

 "I talked with a ham during our state (PA) QSO Party last weekend who helped set up the antennas at W4ATC. I plan to be in NC in November (the cape) but will try to visit W4ATC. What day of the month do you convene meetings? 

 "I'd be glad to talk to the club about the "old" times at W4ATC, if I can be there the night of a meeting. My call back then, by the way, was WA2GBC, and Allen Weber, WB4PHQ, of the Meterology Dept. was our trustee. The advisor was always from the EE Dept., despite not being a ham. I don't believe the EE Dept. even had one ham in it. 

 "During the early 1970s, we initiated a radiogram program and placed a box for such at the student union. The current student union was built during this period, and we considered moving the ham shack from the top floor of 1911 Building, just opposite the rest rooms, to the new Student Center. We determined that access would be limited at the Center, which it wasn't at 1911, so we stayed there.... 

"After NCSU, I worked for the ARRL for a short time, charged with performing the first total rewrite of the License Manual since it first came out in 1932. Then I worked for TAB Books, the technical book publisher now owned by McGraw-Hill, eventually working up to VP of Editorial and Associate Publisher. My experience as the founding editor of ARC NEWS and one of the cofounders of The Sentinel, which came out on the two days The Technician did not, helped me immensely. Much of my career in publisher is attributable to ham radio. 

 "Feel free to contact me. Phone 717-689-9688. FAX 717-689-7873." 

Jim Southard KD0YR sent us this note in early 2002:

In a random internet search using my own name, I happened upon your http://w4atc.ncsu.edu/alumni.htm web page and thought I'd update your records. It doesn't look like this page is linked to the home page, so maybe it hasn't been updated in a while.

In your alumni list, I'm shown as:

JAMES G. SOUTHARD    KD0YR    (ex. WA4SPA?)    79

The name and current callsign are correct, as is my graduation year.

My original callsign in effect during my years at NC State was WA4SPV (note the error and question marks in your records). I changed to KD0YR when I moved to Colorado after graduation.

You may include my email address as web@jgsouthard.com if you wish.

Most of my W4ATC activity was 1975 - 1977, during my first couple of years at NCSU. During our first two years at NCSU, Richard Spangler (also noted in your alumni list) as I were roommates in Tucker all and spent many late nights in the shack. After that, so many activities got in the way that ham radio began to drop by the wayside. Although I have maintained my ham license, I haven't been active in years.

Jim Southard
web@jgsouthard.com

 1980s
Charles Osborne WD4MBK remembers that in 1978-81 the club had two stations: An HF station was on the top floor of the 1911 Building with a TH6DXX and a 4-element 10m/ 7-element 6m Quad on opposite ends of the building. Other equipment at this station included a 75m bowtie, 40m dipole, 144-20T circular 2m yagi, with a Kenwood T599D (R599D) with a Heath SB-200 kw amp. A VHF station in 407 Daniels (a storage room) had four 16-element 2m EME az-el arrays and four 19-element 432 yagis. "We started the East Coast 70cm Net (sb/cw) in 1979 and I still call it today from here in Atlanta. It is among the oldest sideband UHF Nets in the country." He thinks the rig was an Icom 551 with a MMT-432-28S transverter. 

 Charles also recalls that the club had changed locations many times and during its history had been located in: the King Student Center (since torn down); two rooms on the top floor of the 1911 Bldg.; Daniels basement, 401 and 407; and the Textiles building(?). 

Mark Palsha, AE4QG (ex WA4RFV, WB9YVR, N4LBX, KS4QC) remembers operating from 1982-1987 from a shack in the 1911 Building, using a Kenwood HF rig, TH6DXX and a Heathkit linear, but the club lost that room in 1987 when an academic department needed the space. 

 1990s
From19??-1994 the club worked from and had storage in Nelson Hall, one of the highest elevations on campus. During finals week of the Fall 1994 semester the equipment was moved on short notice to a storage room that Fred McClure AD4GX located in Weaver Labs where he teaches. 

 In June 1995 Dr. Hauser, Interim Head of the EE Dept., granted the club permission to move into Daniels Hall rm. 428. We are running barefoot with a Drake TR-7 into a G5RV and several wire antennas, and we now have our tribander back on the tower that was once used for EME in the 1980s. In February 1996 we put the club back on the air for packet and have logged into the W4DW 147.57 node.

Glenn Crissman, KF4RDN, recalls that "...I served as club technician from 1998 through 2000 and then as club president from 2000 through 2001. During that time the club accomplished a lot. We had meetings on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday's at 7:30pm. I recall that in 1998 we obtained the club callsign NC4SU which we began using on our new "home" repeater. Prior to 1998, the club had a 2m repeater on the roof of DH Hill Library on 145.13 mhz. We had a lot of fun on this repeater too, we had some great voice ID's that played off of an old 8-track tape machine we wired into the controller. Anyway, in 1998 an agreement was reached between the NCSU club and the RARS club which involved a frequency swap in exchange for some equipment. Once the swap was complete StARS moved over to the 146.775 repeater where we set up home as NC4SU. This one was sponsored by the KD4RAA repeater group and we did some really neat stuff there. In 1999, Hurricane Floyd took down our repeater antenna. I have some pictures somewhere I need to get scanned. Anyway, we set up a repeater voting system which was the first of its kind in the Raleigh area with the KD4RAA guys. We also worked tons of contests from the club shack. I remember visiting a lot on the weekends when the hard-core contesters were working, but I never really got into that until later. Jim, N3QYE, and I spent a bunch of weekends on the roof of Daniels Hall fixing up antennas too. Some of our stuff was in pretty bad shape - lots of weathered coax cable. We worked Field Day in 1998 and 1999 from the NCSU Faculty Club off of Hillsborough Street. That was a blast! Both years, a gentleman from the PVRC contesting club stopped in and set up a massive CW station. I am sure there are pictures somewhere of this...it was a sight to see. As club president we did some neat programs at the meetings. We had a demo on Amateur TV from Mark Freeze, WD4KSE. We worked the 10-10 sprint during one of our meetings too. Equipment that we had in the shack was a Drake TR-4, a Yaesu FT-221, an Icom IC-551, and numerous wire and yagi antennas on the roof of Daniels Hall.