W9BJJ History

Putnamville Amateur Radio Club  was formed in 1960 as the "Putnamville Radio Club" with their Constitution and first Trustee, Ermel Fagg, (W9MVC) with members: Lowell Vancleave, (W9CFJ) David Sublette, (W9SQH) Carlton Akers, (W9FSJ) Kenneth Day, (K9PGL).  The club was formed for the need for a closer working relationship between the emergency communications facilities of the State of Indiana and whereas the Putnamville Radio Club was organized for that purpose and whereas radio facilities were needed to coordinate activities of the two groups, therefore  be it resolved that Amateur Radio facilities be maintained as part of club activities.  Repeater W9BJJ was given license and served the state for years in Putnamville before being moved to a  Greencastle location.

The telegraph call CQ was born on the English Telegraph nearly a century ago as a signal meaning "All stations. A notification to all postal telegraph offices to receive the message." Its meaning was close to the present meanings of QNC and QST. Like many other telegraph terms which originated on the landlines, CQ was brought over into radio and used as a general call to all ships by the Marconi Company. Other companies used KA until the London Convention of 1912, which adopted CQ as the international general call or "attention" signal. CQ still means, literally, "attention" but in amateur radio its meaning is perhaps more accurately described by Thomas Raddell who compared it to yelling "Hey, Mac!" down a drain pipe.

Radioreceiver-1924

The Amateur radio service is called Ham radio. It is a two way non professional radio service. Inspired by Marconi, early twentieth century saw the birth of amateur radio. The first to make use of them were the sailors who talked to each other with the help of radio. It was the wireless telegraphy that helped Titanic to call for help. Soon United states saw its importance and enacted an act called the Radio act in 1912.It is the International Telegraph union (ITU) that regulates the radio communication. The ITU allocates the frequency all over the world in three different ways: Region-1 : Americas Region-2 : Africa , Europe and Northern Asia Region-3 : Middle east , South Asia , Australia

"DOUGHBOY"

For us today, and maybe for all Americans who will follow, the Doughboys were the men America sent to France in the Great War, who licked Kaiser Bill and fought to make the world safe for Democracy. The expression doughboy, though, was in wide circulation a century before the First World War in both Britain and America, albeit with some very different meanings. Horatio Nelson's sailors and Wellington's soldiers in Spain were both familiar with fried flour dumplings called doughboys, the predecessor of the modern doughnut that both we and the Doughboys of World War I came to love. Because of the occasional contact of the two nation's armed force and transatlantic migration, it seems likely that this usage was known to the members of the U.S. Army by the early 19th century.

"DEPAUW UNIVERSITY"

DePauw University was founded in 1837. The original name, Indiana Asbury University, came from the first American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church, Francis Asbury. At its conception the school was to be an ecumenical institution of national stature. In fact, the college was "forever to be conducted on the most liberal principles, accessible to all religious denominations, and designed for the benefit of our citizens."

"DUNBAR BRIDGE" 

Dunbar Bridge was built in 1880 over Big Walnut Creek by local farmers using timber that was cut on the Dunbar farm located adjacent the bridge.  As in this case, bridges were often named for adjacent landowners. Indiana's covered bridge era began in the early 1830s when the National Road first crossed the state. The first Hoosier covered bridge was completed in 1835 in Henry County. It is estimated that between 400 and 500 covered bridges may have existed in Indiana. The American Society of Civil Engineers suggests that perhaps 10,000 covered bridges were built in the United States between 1805 and 1885.

"Oakalla Bridge"  

Oakalla Bridge was built in 1898.  Its single span, 52 feet long, crosses Big Walnut Creek. Because the bridges were constructed with timber, they were covered to protect them from the elements. They were often the largest covered area in a community and were sometimes used for revival meetings, weddings, and political rallies. Two major Indiana covered bridge builders, J. J. Daniels and Joseph A. Britton, lived in the Rockville area, and a third, A. M. Kennedy working with his sons and grandsons, lived in Rushville. This explains the concentration of covered bridges in Parke and Rush counties. Between them, they built 158 bridges in Indiana.

"PUTNAM COUNTY WINTER"

Putnam County, Indiana, organized in 1821 and chartered in 1822, is located in south central Indiana; an area of gently rolling hills and plains, picturesque streams and named in honor of General Israel Putnam a hero of the French and Indian War. Greencastle, our county seat, is located on land which was deeded to the county by Ephraim Dukes in 1823.  In 1825, Dukes son-in-law, John Wesley Clark, gave additional land.  These two tracts of land, totaling 160 acres, comprise the nucleus of Greencastle today.  Local tradition asserts that the name of "Greencastle" was chosen because Ephraim Dukes had originally come from Greencastle, Pennsylvania. 

"Old Round Barn"

Round Barns, which include truly round and many sided, can be found in many parts of the USA. The largest concentrations of this style of barn are found in the midwest (Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin). Vernon county,  Wisconsin boasts more round barns than any other county in the USA. This claim is up for debate because Fulton county, Indiana makes the same claim and the town of Rochester, In. Fulton county hosts a Round Barn Festival every year. Some of these unique barns are being preserved and taken care of while others are deteriorating and falling apart. This barn no longer exists in Greencastle, Indiana. Most round barns are built with a silo in the center of the barn. The round shape was supposed to make work in the barn, i.e. feeding or milking cows, more efficient. Another possibility for their construction: the round shape provided no corners for evil spirits to hide in.

"Monon Railroad Station, Greencastle, Indiana."

1947 100 years of service  

The Monon served five major Universities in Indiana, Purdue University (West Lafayette), Wabash College (Crawfordsville), DePauw University (Greencastle), Indiana University (Bloomington), and Butler University (Indianapolis). The state's decision to put Purdue University at Lafayette in 1869 had partly to do with Monon service, there since 1852. So important was the college traffic that the road painted its passenger rolling stock the red and gray of Wabash College, and painted its freight engines black and gold of DePauw University (not Indiana University and Purdue University as is commonly thought).  In 1959, after the Indianapolis to Chicago trains were discontinued, it didn't make sense to continue with two color schemes, and to economize, the red and gray passenger scheme was slowly converted to black and gold.

Putnam County HAMS

Click on pictures for full size image

History Of Morse Code:

Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872) was a painter and founder of the National Academy of Design. In 1832, while on a ship returning from Europe, he conceived the basic idea of an electromagnetic telegraph. Experiments with various kinds of electrical instruments and codes resulted in a demonstration of a working telegraph set in 1836, and introduction of the circuit relay. This made transmission possible for any distance. With his creation of the American Morse code, the historic message, "What hath God wrought?" was sucessfully sent from Washington to Baltimore. The Morse code used in those days differed greatly from that which is used today. Morse code originated on telegraph lines and the original users did not listen to tones but instead to the clicking sounds created by sounders. They used the American Morse code as opposed to today's International Morse. When sending dahs (Morse code is composed of dits or short key closures, and dahs or longer key closures) the user simply sent two close-together dits. This was created by using a conventional code key. With the advent of radio communications the international Morse became more widespread. Users of the international Morse created dahs with a longer key closure, instead of two close-spaced dits. In order to increase transmission speed on early landline circuits and later on radio circuits, semi-automatic "bug" keys were invented in 1902 and were widely adopted. Bug keys used a vibrating pendulum to create dits and the user still manually creates the dahs. In more recent times, the user can employ keyers that electronically create dits and dahs. Iambic keyers have a memory so that the user can operate a mechanical "paddle" quicker than the keying rate of the keyer. This makes for very comfortable and nearly effortless keying. Today experienced operators copy received text without the need to write as they receive, and when transmitting, can easily converse at 20 to 30 words per minute. Morse code will always remain  as one viable means of providing highly reliable communications in difficult  conditions. Site at:. http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/morse.html

Guglielmo Marconi (1874 - 1937)

Italian electrical engineer, He was born in Bologna and educated at the University of Bologna. As early as 1890 he became interested in wireless telegraphy, and by 1895 he had developed apparatus with which he succeeded in sending signals to a point a few kilometers away by means of a directional antenna. After patenting his system in Great Britain, he formed (1897) Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company, Ltd., in London. In 1899 he established communication across the English Channel between England and France, and in 1901 he communicated signals across the Atlantic Ocean between Poldhu, in Cornwall, England, and Saint John's, in Newfoundland, Canada. His system was soon adopted by the British and Italian navies, and by 1907 had been so much improved that transatlantic wireless telegraph service was established for public use. Marconi was awarded honors by many countries and received, jointly with the German physicist Karl Ferdinand Braun, the 1909 Nobel Prize in physics for his work in wireless telegraphy.

73 The traditional expression "73" goes right back to the beginning of the landline telegraph days. It is found in some of the earliest editions of the numerical codes , each with a different definition, but each with the same idea in mind--it indicated that the end, or signature, was coining up. But there are no data to prove that any of these were used. The first authentic use of 73 is in the publication The National Telegraph Review and Operators' Guide, first published in April 1857. At that time, 73 meant "My love to you!" Succeeding issues of this publication continued to use this definition of the term. Curiously enough, some of the other numerals then used have the same definition now that they had then, but within a short time, the use of 73 began to change. In the National Telegraph Convention, the numeral was changed from the Valentine-type sentiment to a vague sign of fraternalism. Here, 73 was a greeting, a friendly "word" between operators and it was so used on all wires. In 1859, the Western Union Company set up the standard "92 Code". A list of numerals from one to 92 was compiled to indicate a series of prepared phrases for use by the operators on the wires. Here, in the 92 Code, 73 changes from a fraternal sign to a very flowery "accept my compliments," which was in keeping with the florid language of that era. Over the years from 1859 to 1900, the many manuals of telegraphy show variations of this meaning. Dodge's The Telegraph Instructor shows it merely as "compliments." The Twentieth Century Manual of Railway and Commercial Telegraphy defines it two ways, one listing as "my compliments to you;" but in the glossary of abbreviations it is merely "compliments." Theodore A. Edison's Telegraphy Self-Taught shows a return to "accept my compliments." By 1908, however, a later edition of the Dodge Manual gives us today's definition of "best regards" with a backward look at the older meaning in another part of the work where it also lists it as "compliments." "Best regards" has remained ever since as the "put-it-down-in-black-and-white" meaning of 73 but it has acquired overtones of much warmer meaning. Today, amateurs use it more in the manner that James Reid had intended that it be used --a "friendly word between operators."

SOS The amateur distress call, QRRR, grew from the purpose of the first organized amateur emergency nets. They were set up in cities along the Pennsylvania Railroad to aid the "Pennsy" (and later other railroads) with train communications in the event of failure of the railroad telegraph landlines--which were frequent. The signal QRR came to be used to indicate that the calling station had railroad traffic related to some emergency. ARRL eventually adopted this call for use by any amateur who had distress traffic and later the call was changed to QRRR because of a conflict in definitions with the international Q signal QRR. One of the first distress calls was CQD, coined by the Marconi Company about 1904 from the "general call" CQ and the letter D for "distress." The main problem with CQD was that it was supposed to be used only by ships which subscribed to the Marconi radio system and ships of one system were discouraged from communicating with ships or shore stations of other, competing, companies. The problem got so bad that it was taken up in the international radio conference in 1906 where a new universal distress call was proposed. The American delegation suggested the letters NC which were already recognized in the International Signal Code for Visual Signalling. The German delegation proposed its own SOE which was already in use on German ships as a general inquiry signal similar to CQ (which was then used only by the Marconi system). The British delegation, of course, wanted to stick to the Marconi signal CQD. The convention found SOE acceptable except that the final E could easily be lost in QRN so the letter S was substituted, making it SOS. The convention decided that SOS should be sent as a single code character with a sound unlike any other character, thus arresting the attention of anyone hearing it. So was officially adopted, but CQD remained in use for some years, particularly aboard British ships. It wasn't until 1912, after the Titanic disaster, that SOS became universal and the use of CQD gradually disappeared. Titanic radio operator Jack Phillips sent both CQD and SOS to be sure that there couldn't possibly be any misunderstanding. [SOS does not stand for Save Our Ship or Save Our Souls - Ed.]

Silent KeyS

Gees, the name "Bob Reeves" brings back a bunch of memories. Unfortunately, they are just bits and pieces. Main thing I remember was that Bob used 6 meters a lot in the 1950's and lived somewhere north of Greencastle. Somewhere around here, in my personal papers, is a copy of the newsletter we had back in 1957. If I run across it, I will let you know, as it has most of the information that would be appropriate for a "history" page. My first contact with ham radio was through Tom Herriott, the blind city police dispatcher. Tom's station was in the County Court house and a "long wire" antenna was strung from the top of the courthouse to another building on the square. I think this was before the Police Department moved to another location, above the fire station? At any rate, Tom had his transmitter and receiver sitting below the counter where "Police Business" was conducted. Although Tom was quite active on 80 meters, most of his on-air time was on Sunday mornings when he connected DePauw students with their parents, via ham radio. I think the club was organized in 1956 during my Junior year at DePauw. LaVerne Smith, Herb Glover and others got their novice license through the club. If I can add anything else, I will be in contact...73,W9TGH, Ron Rush

Thomas Herriott, W9GSE, President

Robert Reeves, W9HSN, Vice President

Raymond Hill, K9AMK, Sec.-Treas.

Ronald Rush, W9TGH, Act. Mgr.

Lowell W. VanCleave, W9CFJ

David Sublette, W9SQH

R. Smith*

J. Brooks*

*Not available - may have been novices: Kn5JNB/9 and Kn9GZG

 

Dave Sublette: W9SQH

Bob was with DePauw University/WGRE for 26 years and over 50 years in amateur radio. Bob was also a Charter Member of the Club.

Bob Reeves: W9HSN, 1925-2000

 Of all the professors at DePauw Dr. Kissinger was my favorite, even though the only class I took from him was to get my amateur radio license. 73, WB4ZDU,  Raymond

Dr. K, as he was known to his students, joined the DePauw faculty in 1960. He taught 40 years in the physics and astronomy department until his retirement in May 2000. At that time, a story in The DePauw student newspaper quoted physics major Aaron W. Ellis ‘01 as saying, “Dr. K is one of the best professors I ever had at DePauw. His knowledge of physics is limitless. He’s one of those professors that I’m glad to have had a class with, and you tell other people to take one of his classes just so they can know what he’s like.” "It's just like your mother told you, just do your best and have fun." Paul

Paul Kissinger: W9MLH, 1930-2002

Hello, I am the daughter of Paul and Mary Aker. My family and I wanted to tell you how much we have enjoyed the Putnam County Amateur Radio web site. It is certainly well done and very informative. We especially wanted you to know how much we appreciated your tribute to my parents. They enjoyed amateur radio so much, but they enjoyed all of their radio friends even more! You all meant a lot to them. To have you include them in your website has meant much to us. Thank You, Vicki

Paul was a founding member of the Putnam County Amateur Radio Club and his wife Mary  was a amateur radio operator and club member also.

Paul Aker: KA9NVG, 1915-2003 & Mary Aker: KS9N,1924-2003

J. W. was the club president and the weekly net control operator. He left us to soon and will be missed.

John Wilson ( J.W.): WD9IWY,1946-2003

Bob was a club member for over twenty years and a club officer for many years

Bob Creviston Sr.: K9VMG, 1928-2007

We have not forgotten you old friends...

As is our custom when a ham in our club dies, we add a name and call sign of the SK on a  plaque in our Repeater Room at DePauw University.

This site is dedicated to the memory of Tom Herriott (W9GSE), Dave Sublette (W9SQH), Robert J. Reeves (W9HSN), Paul B. Kissinger (W9MLH), Paul W. Aker (KA9NVG), , Mary Aker (KS9N), J.W. (WD9IWY) Bob Creviston (K9VMG) and all the Hams that enjoyed amateur radio over the years.

SPECIAL THANKS TO: JOHNSONANDJOHNSON.NET

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Copyright © 2008 [Putnam County Amateur Radio Club](W9BJJ). All rights reserved.
Revised: 26 May 2008 08:22:24 -0400 .