W6CX – MDARC Club License


MDARC currently holds two club licenses:

W6CX and W6LGW.

Where did W6CX come from?


The Mt. Diablo Amateur Radio Club (MDARC) was founded on January 9, 1947 at the home of our founder and first president, Bud Stedinger, W6CX, in Walnut Creek, CA. Our first meeting was held about a week later at the Walnut Creek Grammar School, where 28 people became members.


Sometime between 1952 and 1954, the Club obtained it's first club call sign, W6LUF. But then, Bud passed away in 1955. In his honor in 1956, MDARC adopted his call sign, W6CX, as its primary Club call, replacing W6LUF. The first trustee was Fred Caudel, W6DEX.


John Howell, WA6MIE, replaced Fred as trustee in 1965. Pete Peterson, W6LGW, became trustee in 1968, replacing John. Hal Mumford, W6CU, became trustee in 1976; and Carl Cook, WA6JUD replaced him in 1978.


Jay Caldis, KT6Y, became trustee on Nov. 17, 1981. In addition to being our license trustee for several decades, Jay served on the Club's Board of Directors several times, was on multiple Audit Committees and held numerous positions on the Pacificon and Technical Committees (and its predecessor, the Rocky Ridge Repeater Group). He was also our primary net control for the weekly Club net for some 17 years. Jay was inducted as a Lifetime Member in 2013.


The current Trustee of W6CX, Jim Tittle, K6SOE, (above), became Trustee on March 18, 2019. After becoming licensed in March 1991, Jim joined MDARC and the Rocky Ridge Repeater Group. After serving in the Repeater Group for a few years, he went on to become Chairman of the group. After being mentored by Keith Lattin N6PMF, he took over responsibility of the ATV repeater and its move to North Peak. Jim is also one of the net controls for the weekly Voice and ATV nets.


Up until this time, W6CX was used only during our Field Day events. but also in 1981, our 2-meter and 220 MHz repeaters were both changed to use the call sign W6CX/R. Other repeaters were added over the years.


In 1984, a proposal was presented to change the call sign of the 2-meter repeater from W6CX to W6KLM, in memory of recent silent key Doug Lortsher. The call W6CX would be retained for the 220 MHz repeater. The proposal was later withdrawn at the request of the Lortsher family.


An interesting side about Hal Mumford is that he had two brothers, Royal, W3CU; and William, W2CU. All were members of MDARC at one time, as well as members of the Old, Old Timers Club (http://ootc.us/).

Hal, who had several other call signs at various times, including W6FAR, 7CW, 7CU and 7ZJ  was born Oct. 7, 1905. Graduated from Willamette University in 1928 with a degree in chemistry and was then employed by Colgate-Palmolive. A 1973 call book lists him as living in Walnut Creek, where he passed away in 1986.


Core information by Jay Caldis, KT6Y. with edits by Mike Patterson, N6JGA. June 15, 2015.

Additional edits by Mike Patterson, N6JGA, January 02, 2017 and March 8, 2019.

Source = http://ootc.us/

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Royal Mumford, W3CU:

"Royal Mumford, W3CU, was a founding member of the Maryland Mobileers Amateur Radio Club.  We have adopted his call sign for our club license.  The Mobileers are planning to celebrate the centennial of Royal's first license, issued as 7CU in 1916.


The attachment has some interesting information on Commander Mumford."

Anne Arundel Beekepers Association

From an email by Gordon Davids, WJ3K, Vice President, Maryland Mobileers Amateur Radio Club (MMARC). December 13, 2016.