{"id":302,"date":"2015-11-24T18:38:34","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T01:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rmrl.org\/rl\/?p=302"},"modified":"2016-04-11T21:02:16","modified_gmt":"2016-04-12T03:02:16","slug":"rmrl-the-early-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmrl.org\/rl\/2015\/11\/24\/rmrl-the-early-years\/","title":{"rendered":"RMRL: the early years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recollections of Steve Smith, K0WLN<\/span>,\u00a0 (one of the original founders) and Glenn Cascino, WN0EHE<\/span> <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Steve and about a half-dozen or so other people started the club in the late 1960\u2019s.\u00a0 When asked why they didn\u2019t join an existing club, Steve responded that they were a young group and didn\u2019t feel all that welcomed into some of the other, more established, clubs.\u00a0 They wanted to start a group that made everyone feel welcome.<\/p>\n

\"Denver
RMRL\u2019s first repeater location: DU library tower<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Steve worked at DU in the Physics Department and started the club off with a repeater in the three-story library tower at DU. \u00a0At the time, Steve was working on infrared projects for the Air Force and flying 1,000-pound equipment balloons that needed tracking, hence his interest in communications and ham radio.\u00a0 He had a fully-equipped machine shop available to him for his work projects.\u00a0 A lot of ham equipment and accessories were home-built in those days, so being able to machine his own parts gave Steve a big advantage in setting up and deploying equipment.<\/p>\n

The other core founders were also mostly technically inclined, many worked at local television stations or elsewhere in the communications field.\u00a0 The businessmen of the group helped get the club paperwork done, establishing it as a 501(3)c, and handling other legal matters along the way.<\/p>\n

At the time, when crystal radios came from the factory, the most popular frequency was 146.94 and 146.34.\u00a0 That is why you will find so many early clubs set up repeaters in those frequencies \u2013 that was the main option unless they had the resources to add crystals tuned to different frequencies.<\/p>\n

The first club repeater was the 146.34\/94.\u00a0 That\u2019s not a typo.\u00a0 The nomenclature for referencing a repeater at the time included both the input and output signals.\u00a0 The input was 146.340, with an output of 146.940, thus the repeater was referenced as the 146.34\/94<\/strong>.\u00a0 Today we know it as the 146.94 repeater.<\/p>\n

The original was a vacuum tube radio, a Motorola FMTRU-80(D).\u00a0 This was a top-of-the-line mobile radio, originally designed and manufactured in the 1950\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0Power supplies for base stations were problematic: the manufacturers would rack-mount a bunch of mobile power supplies and call it good. Steve made good use of his machine shop and built the power supplies himself.<\/p>\n

Steve\u2019s friend, Bob Swanlund, also a ham, worked for the Colorado State Patrol and founded the station at the top of Squaw Mountain.\u00a0 Bob\u2019s wife, Margaret, worked for the Forest Service. Squaw Mountain was the site of the Colorado State Patrol radios, as well as communications systems for several other government agencies.\u00a0 It was a good partnership: Margaret did the fire-lookout job while Bob took care of all the communications equipment on site.<\/p>\n

\"Squaw
Bob and Margaret Swanlund\u2019s home atop Squaw Mountain. No longer used as a residence, it is now known as the \u201cHouse of Radios\u201d hosting many repeaters.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bob and his wife worked with the government to build a home at the top of Squaw \u2014an endeavor that took 16 years to complete.\u00a0 Although it lacked running water, it was a great location for a ham radio repeater.\u00a0 Bob invited his friend Steve to locate his repeater up there.\u00a0 So, after about a year at the DU library location, they moved the repeater to the basement of Bob\u2019s house and put the antenna on the mountain.\u00a0 With the antenna cantilevered out about 5\u2019 from the tower, they had coverage in all directions. Lacking a commercial duplexer,\u00a0they set up a dual-antenna repeater.\u00a0 Steve said there was nothing behind the antenna and the radio footprint was amazing.<\/p>\n

Thus, the Rocky Mountain Radio League became the first ham radio club to have a repeater on Squaw Mountain.\u00a0 Which also helps to explain the club\u2019s call sign: W0WYX<\/span>.\u00a0 Why is that significant?\u00a0 Bob Swanlund\u2019s call sign was W0WYX<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\"W0WYX
Affixed just above the fireplace in the House of Radios, this sign memorializes Bob Swanlund and the RMRL\u2019s roots.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

#\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 #\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 #<\/p>\n

Additional Reading:<\/em><\/p>\n

Early mobile radio history and information: Motorola FM Mobile 2-Way Radio Equipment, Part One, 1941-1957<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Forest Fire Lookout Towers of the <\/em><\/strong>Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forests <\/em><\/strong>and Rocky Mountain National Park<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recollections of Steve Smith, K0WLN,\u00a0 (one of the original founders) and Glenn Cascino, WN0EHE Steve and about a half-dozen or so other people started the club in the late 1960\u2019s.\u00a0 When asked why they didn\u2019t join an existing club, Steve responded that they were a young group and didn\u2019t feel all that welcomed into some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-rmrl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrl.org\/rl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrl.org\/rl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrl.org\/rl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrl.org\/rl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrl.org\/rl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/rmrl.org\/rl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":311,"href":"https:\/\/rmrl.org\/rl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions\/311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrl.org\/rl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrl.org\/rl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrl.org\/rl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}