Ham Radio Call Signs Discovered During Clayton UC Renovation Revive Memories of Lehigh’s Amateur Radio Society (Pennsylvania)

Mysterious letters and numbers etched into the wall of a sealed-off, fifth-floor room in the Clayton University Center at Packer Hall are ham radio call signs and likely remnants of Lehigh’s former Amateur Radio Society—a club started 100 years ago that allowed students to talk with fellow radio enthusiasts all over the world.

Discovered during current renovations of the Clayton UC, the call signs have revived memories of the Lehigh University Amateur Radio Society, which was mentioned in The Brown and White as early as 1920 and in the Epitome yearbook through the 1990s.

Daryl George ’69 ’78G was among those whose call sign—WA3EMX—was etched into the wall. George, who now lives in Wyoming, doesn’t remember leaving his call sign, but believes club members used the fifth-floor room for storage. There also were antennas on the roof that could be accessed from the room. They could be rotated to achieve higher frequencies capable of contacting people in Europe and other parts of the world, he said.

“You’ve probably heard about radio waves bouncing off the ionosphere …,” he said. “That was part of the fun of the hobby, trying to figure out what frequency you want to operate on for where you wanted to talk to.”

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