ARRLWeb: Historical Committee Report

Skip to page content · Home · Site Index · Site Search · Call Sign Search · Catalog · Join ARRL · QST · Members Only · Operating Activities · Licensing · News/Bulletins · Services · Education · Public Service · Support · Donate to ARRL · ARRL Info

View page with graphics

JTK Communications -- Ad

Historical Committee Report

Announcements · Board and Committee Reports

Document #32

Report of the Historical Committee
to the January 2002 meeting of the ARRL Board

The Historical Committee met in a teleconference call on December 20^th and conducted other business via e-mail. Director Maxwell and his wife spent most of the week of November 12^th assessing the content and quality of historical documents stored in the 3^rd floor attic/penthouse area. EVP Sumner and Director Frenaye visited the new facilities of the Connecticut Vintage Radio and Communications Museum in Windsor CT on December 26^th.

Inventory and preservation

The major activity during the past six months related to the inventory of artifacts has been the extensive survey Jim Maxwell and his wife performed during November when they were in Newington. They managed to catalog roughly 20% of the 125 file cabinets full of archive material (paperwork, pamphlets, photos, etc).

Jim produced an extensive report describing the general items found and their condition. There was less damage to items than had been expected because of the unregulated environment in the 3^rd floor. There was minor water damage, and many pages of documents are brittle, but few had been severely damaged and it appears with some work in the next few months that we will be able to inventory and store almost all of them. Members of the Board wishing a copy of the report should contact Director Frenaye.

Moving the items from the attic into a work area and some new and replacement cabinets is a high priority. We've had some preliminary discussions with EVP Sumner about how much space is needed and we believe some options will work out. It will take some money and effort to build an enclosed work area that can be locked and where we can store the large number of cabinets holding documents. We propose that up to $25,000 of the funds currently in reserve in our Fund for the Preservation of Historical Artifacts be authorized for that work.

We also have had some discussions about how to coordinate historical activities in Newington. There are no staff positions assigned to help with this effort, though Steve Mansfield carves out some time from his Public Relations and Washington DC support assignments. Someone needs to coordinate on-site efforts, that of a potential intern or local volunteers that are interested and capable of helping us out. Possible options are a local retiree, or perhaps an ARRL retiree, or even an MBA student at a local college looking for some real-world experience at organizing.

Steve Mansfield has started discussions with Trinity College in Hartford to see if one of their graduate would like to work as an intern at ARRL later this year to help continue the inventory and planning effort. Trinity has a Masters program in American Studies with emphasis on Museums and Archives. This looks very promising, and the opportunity for someone to work with a small organization on a start-up project, and one involving communications, apparently has a lot of appeal.

Through Director Maxwell's efforts there is also some increased sensitivity to the historical importance and value of some of the items used in display or in daily work around the building in Newington. Field & Educational Services has a valuable collection of early call directories that have been placed in protective coverings. The Godley log from the 1921 Transatlantic Tests (from Scotland) is being moved to a more hospitable locating within W1AW (out of the sunlight).

The Information Technology staff in Newington is now making regular backups of the ARRL web site to make sure we have a historical record of our development of that resource.

Some photos of existing artifacts were supplied for use in a historical book on Amateur Radio scheduled for publication later in the year.

Donations

We've still not solicited donations but interesting items seem to be finding us never the less. Here is a sample of items that have recently been received:

1920'a-1940's electronics and communications books (from the ARRL lab)

Message forms with W1AW message text from December 7th and 8th 1941

1913 Department of Commerce callbook (thanks to Director Goddard for help on this one)

Several ham radio items from the FCC and military during the early 1940's when Amateur Radio was off the air

As an interesting sidelight, Director Maxwell recently noted that an old QSL card from AC4YN in Tibet was auctioned on eBay for $1136 - there are a large number of collectors of radio communications artifacts and related items.

Contact with other organizations

The Connecticut Vintage Radio and Communications Museum recently purchased a large historic building in Windsor CT, just to the north of Hartford, and they moved their collection of items over the Christmas holidays. The building is in the downtown historic area of Windsor and has about 85,000 square feet of area. They plan to use perhaps one-third of it for their displays and storage and rent out the rest fairly inexpensively.

EVP Sumner and Director Frenaye visited the new building for an extensive tour on December 26^th. They would like to find a way for us to work with them on joint projects. They've offered to let us handle the display of Amateur Radio within the museum (they already have a growing collection of ham radio items), or just to rent storage space within the building. Where mutually beneficial we might want to partner with them on grant applications.

Other

We're still interested in preparing an article for QST about our historical plans and efforts to date, perhaps that will get some attention in the next few months.

No recent progress has been made on the desire to obtain registered historical landmark status for the W1AW building.

My thanks to all of the members of the committee for their strong efforts during the past six months.

Historical Committee
Tom Frenaye, K1KI, chairman
Al Cohen, W1FXQ
Steve Mansfield, N1MZA, staff liaison
Jim Maxwell, W6CF
Jim McCobb, W1LLU

14 January 2002

A sample of some historical "pearls" from the ARRL attic

(thanks to Director Maxwell)

"Old Betsy," HPM's old spark transmitter, located in the W1AW lobby.

Original log from the 1921 Transatlantic Tests, from Paul Godley. Written in his tent in Scotland.

A certificate for the Royal Order of Trans-Atlantic Brasspounders.

Programs for the First International Congress of the IARU, Paris, April 14-18, 1925.

Correspondence related to the organization of the famous MacMillan Arctic expedition, on which Don Mix operated.

Stenographic Report of the First National ARRL Convention at Chicago, 1921.

A notebook containing a photographic record of the ARRL HQ building construction in Newington, 1962.

Original manuscripts of articles written for 1917 QST, including one by "The Old Man' (HPM).

A bound volume containing the first 20 issues of the Proceedings of the Radio Club of America.

IARU records starting 1925.

ARRL HISTORICAL COMMITTEE - 12/20/2001 8pm EST

Teleconference notes

Present: Tom Frenaye, K1KI, Jim Maxwell, W6CF, Steve Mansfield, N1MZA, Al Cohen, W1FXQ, Jim McCobb, W1LLU, and, as a guest, Charles Griffin, W1GYR.

1. Meeting started at 8:10PM EST with everyone on-line.

2. Charles Griffin talked about recent developments regarding the Connecticut Vintage Radio and Communications Museum, particularly their purchase of 85K square feet of space in three buildings in downtown Windsor CT. They will be moving there later this month. There are a number of possibilities they are working on to sublease the space and work with other groups, and they have secured a grant from the State of Connecticut to help with moving expenses. Charles mentioned they'd raised nearly $16K last fall in a fund-raising effort from their 150 members. Tom Frenaye to follow up and talk with Chris Watt, who is managing the property, to discuss options and perhaps get a tour of the space.

3. Jim Maxwell spoke about his several days work in the ARRL attic/penthouse going through file cabinets and doing a survey of about 20% of the 125 file cabinets with historic material. He confirmed that there are quite a number of valuable documents, and that, surprisingly, things were in better condition than he had expected, considering the hot and dirty atmosphere, and possible damage from building HVAC lines. His report concluded that it was very important to move the documents and photographs into an environment with better climate control, to replace some old file cabinets and to add some additional ones. Tom Frenaye to contact Dave Sumner to work on ways to accomplish that in the next couple of months.

4. Steve Mansfield talked about his contact with Nancy Birch-Wagner of Trinity College in Hartford and the possibility of getting an intern from their graduate studies program with specialty in museums and archives. He has plans to meet with her after the new year and give her a tour of the ARRL.

5. We spent some time discussing how we might utilize an intern and other volunteers and concluded the first step was to work on moving the items from the attic into an area, mostly likely on the 2^nd floor, where cataloging and inventory work could be done. There is still a need for someone to work as the "manager" or coordinator of the effort at HQ, and there are no jobs designated for that role as of today. One idea raised was to ask the ARRL Foundation to help with a stipend of some sort to pay for a part-time or retired person to do that job. Al Cohen and Charles Griffin said they had some ideas on who they might propose for the job, and Al mentioned someone who had been very good at scheduling ham radio volunteers at the yearly CT Science Fair held at Trinity College. Jim McCobb said he'd worked with MBA students in the past where his organization funded a course (any) for them in return for their organizing efforts. Another possibility might be a retired HQ staff member.

Jim McCobb suggested that it would probably be best to construct a report and motion for the full ARRL Board to request some amount (max of $25,000 decided in the end) for building the new room (walls, utilities, desk, cabinets, etc) out of the existing Fund for the Preservation of Amateur Radio Artifacts. This is a reserve fund set aside about ten years ago for this kind of project. Money used in this fashion would not change the bottom line profit and loss for the year since it would simply reduce the reserve. Tom to confirm that with Dave Sumner and Barry Shelley.

6. We talked again about an article about the historic projects in QST, and agreed that we really need to work harder to make this happen, with Mansfield, Maxwell and Frenaye to continue working on ways to get it started.

7. The teleconference ended at about 9:15PM EST.