W2AEE in the 1950's

W2AEE in the 1950's by Yves A. Feder, W1EOX

The following is based on email exchanged between N2YGK and W1EOX in April, 1995, which was shortly followed by a letter that included more background on several of the club members at the time.

Browsing thru WWW came upon your home page. Brought back MANY memories as I was VP of CUARC around 1956-57.... then trustee for a while....!!!! I'm now W1EOX (since 1967), while at CC I was K2CUI.

Lots of good memories of the 50's, particularly enjoyed the antenna descriptions you have from the 50's. I probably can furnish some of the author names if this is of interest.

We had a VERY active College Net (CN), part of an "Association of College Amateur Radio Clubs" and held regular nets every Friday afternoon at 3pm on 3895 kHz.

The old "Armstrong attic" was our home in those days, under the marvelous copper roof of the old Engineering Building, with its myriad soldered rectifying joints..... on a hot summer day with metal expansion, one could hear a zillion broadcast images generated by the roof, up and down 75 meters!!! We called it the Armstrong attic at the time because in the darker spaces behind the floored area where the shack was, were piles of boxes with Armstrong's notes. There were cartons upon cartons, even some bits and pieces of equipment, all just placed back there and forgotten.

I recall many of the ops around in those days, as well as the amazing equipment in use. In fact I even have a really neat picture of myself at the old TEMCO 1KW AM rig we had (formerly on Commodore Vanderbilt's yacht in 1939!!!) and one of the QSL cards we used in the mid 50's, a very distinctive pattern gold/blue with CU seal in the middle, I have mounted on the wall of the shack here.

Many fond memories of W2AEE, and in fact for me as well as a few others at the time it was the focal point for my college existence on Morningside Heights!

73

Yves A. Feder W1EOX
(College '58 AB, two yrs postgrad 58-60)
[email protected]