Drawing on a wealth of personal accounts found in magazines, newsletters, and trade journals, historian Kristen Haring provides an inside look at ham radio culture and its impact on hobbyists' lives.
By: Kristen Haring
Every night thousands of men retreat to radio stations elaborately outfitted in suburban basements or tucked into closets of city apartments to talk to local friends or to strangers on the other side of the world. They communicate by speaking into a microphone, tapping out Morse code on a telegraph key, or typing at the keyboard of a teletypewriter. In the Internet age, instantaneous, long-distance, person-to-person communication seems ordinary. But amateur radio operators have been completing such contacts since the 1910s. The hobbyists often called “hams” initially turned to radio for technical challenges and thrills. As the original form of wireless technology became more reliable and commonplace in the 1930s, ham radio continued as a leisure activity. uals, trade journals, and government documents to illustrate how ham radio culture rippled through hobbyists’ lives.
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