W3MUF 1948 Carmichaels, Pennsylvania

My Dad, John O. Stewart W3MUF was the dentist in Carmichaels (a small coal mining town in Pa.) starting back in the 1930's. I'm guessing that he would have got involved in short wave radio about the same time. I wasn't around until 1942. I was told he donated his transmitter to the war effort and was a volunteer in the local Civil Defense. As a kid I can remember him making a big deal when he starting fooling around with single sideband. It seemed to take up a lot of the conversation back then. Every night the family would go to bed and Dad would make his way to the basement to his shack and then his Hammarlund HQ-129X would start humming and squealing. He would be down there one to two hours every night. One time he got stuck to his microphone and my Mom ran to the main switch...fortunately he got unstuck even before Mom got to the switch. As serious as it was I can remember him and Mom laughing about the incident.

Here is a story that involved our neighbor and his concern about hearing voices. It just happens that when Dad would transmit, the neighbor's stylus in his record player would pick up dad's voice. Finally they figured out what was going on and I would guess he put some kind of filter on the record player to alleviate the problem.

One item that would be of interest to your history of ham radio in Pennsylvania happened during WWII. During the war, hams were forbidden to transmit as the Government was afraid of "spies" sending info back to Germany. The members of the local ham club (Uniontown, Pa.) would listen and noticed a strange transmission on the same frequency, same time, but in code. This was reported to the FCC. They triangulated in on the signal and located a German spy. He was held up in a place called Mount Chateau (big hotel) in Cheat Lake, WV. This is located about 25 miles due South of Carmichaels, Pa. This is where I live now. It was reported that the spy was prepared for an invasion. The FCC took two truckloads of guns and munitions out of his place. When I first read this story I wandered why would a spy locate here in the Morgantown/Cheat Lake area. Then it dawned on me that the MOW (Morgantown Ordinance Works) produced deuterium oxide (heavy water) used in nuclear reactors to make Atomic Bombs. Also the West Virginia University was heavily involved in the war effort. So it made sense.

Chuck Stewart, (now holding my Dad's callsign) W3MUF

The above info was published in the local paper the Herald-Standard when it did an article on the history of Uniontown Ham Club. The paper was dated 1-18-81 and I was paraphrasing the above from my copy of the paper.

QSL from the estate of W5LAJ
Info from Chuck Stewart W3MUF