REVISED BY GENE - 4/12/2009

From:	Gene Wiggins, W9CWG, in a letter dated 6 April 2009
Re:	Valpo Tech, W9SAL and Bill Harris, and QCWA

About W9SAL. I really know very little of the early history on this call. The school, then known as
Dodge Telegraph and Radio Institute, closed for one year during the Depression that started in 1929,
reopened in 1934. In that era All States Radio Club was formed. And I have always assumed the call
W9SAL was issued to them. I came on the scene first in 1942 and that call was there, although hams
were off the air at that time due to WW2. I was associated with the school in 1942 to March 1943.
Then in 1946-47, then back as a faculty in 1953. I assumed Trustee (or Trusty) in the early 1950's
as the ticket came up for renewal. The license normally ran concurrent with my W9CWG license. I kept
W9SAL until my license came up for renewal in 2005, then decided to let W9SAL go. We had no school,
had no club, no nothing, so I put it up for reissue.

I left Tech in 1947 and was chief of an AM broadcast station in my hometown in Ohio. It was a
newspaper owned station. Three brothers inherited the newspaper and added the broadcast facility in
1947. On a vacation trip back to Valpo (my wife is a native), Doc Hershman got hold of me and advised
he had an opening on the staff and offered the position. I basically took the position held by Jim
Drake, then W9ZUG, now W5EF if not SK (have not contacted him for ages). Jim left Tech to join Sandia
Corp. in Albuquerque. Also, a Bill Harris that was on staff, W8WWK, was in the Valpo Hospital. When I
finally got moved to Valpo in September, Bill Harris had already died and his mother in Ashtabula, OH
donated his Collins 32V2 transmitter and 75A1 receiver to W9SAL. (That's Ash ta beula, not Ash tab u la!)
So we made W9SAL the Bill Harris Memorial Station. Bill had either attended, or was a grad of Muskingum
College in New Concord, OH, 25 miles from my home. I never really knew what he taught at Tech or for
how long. It was not very long.

My history for QCWA. I was ready to take the ham test prior to WW2, but no way to get to Detroit.
They came to Columbus and Cleveland quarterly but I never made it. Finally took the test in 1943 in
Chicago, operator license only, no station license or call. Back home in 1946 and got W8YEG. Then got
the W9CWG in 1954 here in Valpo. I applied for QCWA in 1958, 25 years after the 1943 issue. No proof
in a callbook obviously, and had lost that original license. Gus Gironda, W2JE, was sec'y and during
this discussion he mentioned he was being installed as Master of a Masonic Lodge in his hometown.
Being a Past Master, I called Gus on the telephone the evening he was being installed and passed on
my congratulations. Just to add a little personal touch to my early QCWA!