History of W1BUR

Gov. Dukakis receives radiogram via W1BUR
Massachusetts Governor Dukakis receives a radiogram from W1BUR.

Boston University student Scott Lieberman presents Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts with a “radiogram” from Governor James Longley of Maine on Feb. 2, 1977. The radiogram was received on Jan. 29, 1977 during the annual amateur radio simulated emergency test. Photo taken by Rich Jezierny.

As of 2008, the Boston University Amateur Radio Club (BUARC) callsign is W1BUR, a vanity callsign taken after the well-known public radio station WBUR. Previous callsigns assigned to BUARC include WA1VMU, known to be held since at least Feb. 2, 1979. From 1974 into at least the mid-1980s, the station was housed in the George Sherman Union (GSU), 775 Commonwealth Ave. Written records indicate the station was in room 309 of GSU, and was slated for moving to the basement of GSU in Nov. 1984.  In Feb. 1984 Julian M. Sobin made a generous donation of equipment, including Collins HF gear to BUARC. The earliest recollections of members are that there was a BUARC back at least to the 1960’s, but records are lacking in this regard. From 1997-present, the BUARC has been hosted on the first floor of the Photonics Center at 22 Babbitt St. Long, low-loss coax cables are installed from the first floor up to the rooftop. There is a separate rooftop setup for the BU satellite team with a Kenwood TS-2000 and 2m/70cm circularly polarized M2 yagis that was installed in 2012.

Public Service

Historical public service activities of the club include Hurricane Belle in August 1976. International outreach included the Feb-Mar. 1976 earthquake and aftershocks in Guatemala, where a BU student was able to get a message to/from their parents who lived in the affected region.

Historical Member Rosters

todo add scanned rosters from 1970s-1980s