History - Cloned
The Columbia University Amateur Radio Club was founded in 1906. Very few records of that period of the group's history have been found, but what follows has been gleaned from academic journals and University archives.
The Columbia University Experimental Wireless Station was said to have been founded around 1906 in the basement of Chandler Hall, or possibly Havemeyer Hall, the adjacent building.
In 1963, the founding date was claimed to have been in 1907 in Pulse (v2 n11, 12/12/1963), the now-defunct School of Engineering and Applied Sciences student newspaper:
The first records of an amateur radio station at Columbia indicate that, in 1907, there was a spark-gap transmitter located In the basement of Chandler hall. Later the club moved to the old engineering building, where it remained until its recent move to SWM [Seeley W. Mudd Hall -Ed], There was a hiatus of approximately one year in the club's operation while the move to SWM was being undertaken, At present, the club has twenty-five members and it is expected that the number will increase since the club is operating again.
A contemporaneous account documenting a founding date of November 23, 1908 (or earlier) was found by Gintautas Gaidamavicius, LY2YR, in this article in the November 24, 1908 edition of the New York Sun which describes an aerial erected between the smokestacks of Havemeyer and University Halls and a quaint competition for domination of the sky between the radio and aeronautics afficianados.
During World War I, Congress shut down Amateur Radio, resuming the service on October 1, 1919. Shortly thereafter, in November 1920 QST in Calls Heard on page 55, station 2PP, Newark, reports hearing 2XM. Since 2XM was an experimental, rather than Amateur license, it is not clear if the station was shut down during the war.
An article in June 1927 QST (p. 24ff) entitled "5-Meter Work at 2XM With Crystal Control" by A.H. Turner, 3AUX, describes work done 10 miles from Schenectady, NY. This would seem to contradict 2XM being in New York City, as it was listed in 1914. At the time, call signs may have been issued only annually, so it's possible that, fourteen years later, Columbia no longer held 2XM.
Around 1924, the station moved from the basement of Havemeyer (Chandler?) to the Engineering (now Mathematics) (a/k/a Armstrong) Attic.
Provenance of the W2AEE Call Sign
Rumor has it that the club call sign became W2AEE in 1933, under the Federal Radio Commission rules. The next year, the FRC was replaced by the FCC with the Communications Act of 1934. The 1928 call book lists W2AEE as belonging to Jack Alexander (per George Gadbois, W3FEY).
The Armstrong FM System
Major Edwin Howard Armstrong(1890-1954), inventor of the regenerative receiver, superheterodyne circuit, and FM radio, did much of his pioneering work in radio at Columbia as an undergraduate (entering in 1909), as an instructor and assistant to Muchael I. Pupin and, years later, as a professor of electrical engineering. For an excellent biography, see Lawrence Lessing's Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard Armstrong. Also, the PBS series, Empire of the Air features Armstrong. See also, Edwin Armstrong: Pioneer of the Airwaves by Yannis Tsividis, the E. H. Armstrong web site, the Edwin Howard Armstrong Papersat the Columbia Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Jen Comins' Armstrong Papers blog (warning: this is a 500MB+ web page!), and the Armstrong Memorial Research Foundation.
Radio station W2XMN was built by Armstrong in Alpine, NJ in 1939 and operated for 16 years demonstrating high fidelity FM radio. You can clearly see the Alpine radio tower today sitting atop the Palisades opposite Yonkers, where Armstrong lived as a child and performed his first radio experiments. On a related note, WKCR FM, Columbia University, was one of the earliest FM broadcast radio stations.
Self-guided tours are available online and in the Visitors Center for tourists and those visiting Columbia's campus for the first time. A current Columbia I.D. is required to enter all buildings except Low Library. You are welcome to explore any of the outdoor green space on campus. See the links above for admissions-based tours.
Self-guided tours are available online and in the Visitors Center for tourists and those visiting Columbia's campus for the first time. A current Columbia I.D. is required to enter all buildings except Low Library. You are welcome to explore any of the outdoor green space on campus. See the links above for admissions-based tours.