A generous donation from Dr. Ed Snyder, W1YSM, of Wallingford, Connecticut, will endow a fund to support the ARRL Collegiate Amateur Radio Initiative (CARI). Snyder also has provided an additional contribution of “seed money” to help get the initiative off the ground. Snyder said that he hopes the “W1YSM Snyder Family Collegiate Amateur Radio Endowment Fund” will lead to the development of a national network of college Amateur Radio clubs under the aegis of ARRL and set up ways for these clubs to stay in close contact and communicate on the air, in meetings, and through other activities.

“College Amateur Radio activities can provide the ideal bridge between youthful interest in the subject and life-long participation in our community,” ARRL CEO Tom Gallagher, NY2RF, said. “Dr. Snyder, through his generosity, has provided foundational funding for this important mission.”

Gallagher recently wrote about collegiate Amateur Radio in a QST editorial, “Sis-Boom-Bah,” which appeared in the December 2016 issue of QST.

Although he didn’t become a ham until fairly recently, Snyder said he developed an interest in Amateur Radio as a teenager; his father and his uncle were involved with the retail side of radio — his dad, Jack, at Allied and Lafayette, and his uncle, Ben Snyder, W2SOH (SK), an executive at New York City’s Harrison Radio.

“My first radio was a Hallicrafters S-38E,” Snyder told ARRL. “I could not put up an antenna to transmit, so I occupied myself as a SWL.” Later, he got into collecting vintage and antique radios.

“Last year while working at the Yale Medical School, James Surprenant, AB1DQ — a Yale colleague — came to my office and noticed the antique radios. “Twenty minutes later, I had found my elusive Elmer,” Snyder recounted.

Within a few months, Snyder had earned his Technician, General, and Amateur Extra tickets, and he became a Volunteer Examiner and traded his first call sign, KC1FCJ, for W1YSM (Yale School of Medicine). Soon, he found himself as secretary/treasurer and net control station of the once-inactive, but now newly reinvigorated, Yale Amateur Radio Club (W1YU) as well as the chair of the Meriden (Connecticut) Amateur Radio Club Activities Committee.

“I have an awful lot of lost time to make up for,” Snyder said wistfully.

Snyder said he wanted to give something tangible back to Amateur Radio and to honor his family members’ prominent association with Amateur Radio. “The idea of setting up an endowment through the ARRL seemed like a perfect solution,” he said. “I want to focus on collegiate Amateur Radio and hope that the W1YSM Snyder Family Collegiate Amateur Radio Endowment will help the ARRL focus some of its efforts on getting college club stations back on the air and active. Amateur Radio needs to have a bigger impact in this age of cell phones and digital communications.”

Snyder, an M.D. and a professor of laboratory medicine at Yale, said he believes his father and his uncle would be pleased to know how active he’s become in Amateur Radio. “This may be my hobby, but it is their contributions to an earlier era of radio that I hope to commemorate,” he said.

Visit the ARRL Collegiate Amateur Radio Initiative (CARI) Facebook page to learn more and become involved.