First a little history. It is commonly accepted that Marconi invented radio and made the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean back around 1901. These early wireless transmissions were called 'spark gap' because a high voltage was used which made a loud 'snap' sound. Soon after Marconi's first transmissions there were amateurs experimenting with this new technology. For the next several decades as the development of radio technology continued, the amateur community grew, clubs were formed, amateurs provided communications to police and arctic expeditions. Amateurs were responsible for many of the technical discoveries that continued to spread the use of radio in our society.
What is a 'Ham'? "Ham" is what the early telegraph operators called another operator who was not very good at sending. As wireless transmission of those telegraph signals became the norm, the commercial operators increasingly found themselves competing with amateurs for space on the airwaves and began calling the amateur operators, "hams". Well, I guess it stuck. Even though it started out as a derogatory term, hams have adopted it and now wear the label with pride.
Ham radio is first a hobby about communication with other people, sometimes people you don't even know. The earliest ham operators' goal was to find ways to increase the distance their signals would travel, thereby enabling them to talk to more and more people in distant lands. Here in the twenty-first century we now have jet aircraft capable of carrying hundreds of people to distant places in less time than it takes some people to get to work, cell phones that can literally connect us to another person with a telephone number anywhere in the world, and the Internet where we can watch videos made today by the average person worldwide. So why ham radio?
Ham radio is still a sought-after communications method. What's the draw? It's like a big 'party line'.
Most people today don't remember the time when everyone shared the same phone line with his neighbors. If you picked up the telephone to make a call and someone was talking you had to hang up and wait awhile and try again later. Party lines still exist today in the U.S. in a few rural locations as well as in some other countries. With ham radio you call out and you never know who is going to answer! You could be talking to an author in England, an engineer in Syria, a restaurant owner in Australia, or a doctor on the next street. It can be a little intimidating at first, but lifelong friendships have developed this way. Just imagine how this helps foster international goodwill and can move toward world peace. And it’s a lot of fun!Hams have many different activities available in this great hobby. For instance, some of the many things that interest hams are: contacting other people around the world, using repeaters to cover a wide local area with a hand-held or mobile radio , making contacts by bouncing their signal off of the Moon or repeating it through a ham radio satellite. Some hams like to interconnect their transmitters and receivers to their computer for various ways to enhance the enjoyment they get from their hobby. They can now even talk to others through the Internet without actually using a radio. And yes, there are still many who like to find ways to improve, by experimenting with new antenna, transmitter, and receiver designs. Hams are credited with developing a transmission mode known as 'single sideband' and many other radio related inventions.
Hams often operate their equipment from a home station, from a vehicle like a car, boat, plane or bicycle, or even a portable location while walking, on a picnic, or anywhere using a hand-held radio. Why do they do it? Many reasons: fun, excitement, love of science, intrigue, belonging to a social network and so many more.
(Parts of this post are similar to some previous content... with my apologies. This was written as an article to be published elsewhere and I decided to share it with you.)
Until next time...
'73 OM
DE WA2KKG
K
