Amateur Radio Association at the University of Maryland
The Amateur Radio Association at the University of Maryland (ARAUM), formerly the University of Maryland Amateur Radio Association (UMARA), was formed between 1932 and 1933. The ARAUM marginally predates the Federal Communications Commission and received its initial callsign grant of W3EAX from the United States Department of Commerce, which regulated United States radio communications at the time. ARAUM maintains a fully stocked ham shack high atop the South Campus Dining Hall on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park campus, complete with a 2-meter repeater, operating at 145.490 MHz(-). In 1996, the Spartan Packet Radio Experiment (SPRE), an Amateur Radio (Ham radio) communications experiment designed by members of W3EAX, flew on the Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-72) as part of the Spartan package.