W6bb

Triggered by the discoveries of Heinrich Herz and James Clark Maxwell in the nineteens century, Amateur Radio was a movement of youngsters who were excited to use the discovery of radio-magnetic waves to communicate with each other. They managed to build wireless equipment literally out of nothing and established thriving communication networks in... many metropolitan areas in the US around 1906/1907. Nothing was regulated and the official players like the Navy and commercial radio on ships (Marconi company etc.) just made their first clumsy attempts with this new technology. The concept of broadcast was not invented before the 1920ies. The Amateur Radio Club of the University of California was founded in 1914, still in the dawn of the wireless age. The founders were three senior students who had participated as high school students in the first wireless activities in the San Francisco Bay area around 1906 (see W6BB at www.qrz.com). Amateur (Ham) Radio uhhh, what is this??? Yesterday: In contrast to broadcast listening, the name Amateur Radio (Ham Radio) described the activity of radio enthusiasts who also built transmitters to engage in two-way communication. Amateur Radio went through a number of different phases. In the 1920ies, it was radio amateurs who discovered through their experiments that the short waves enable worldwide communication with moderate antenna size and transmitting power. In the 1930ies and 1940ies, amateur radio provided communication for various expeditions, such as the Byrd antarctic expeditions, many Russian arctic expedition, and Thor Heyerdahls first expedition. In the 1950ies and 1960ies, the amateur radio community grew steeply and formed the first worldwide network, connecting people from different countries and backgrounds (see Kirsten Haring: Ham Radios Technical Culture, MIT Press). Beginning in the 1970ies and 1980ies, radio amateurs were able to communicate with astronauts and through earth satellites. Today: Before the internet, only Amateur Radio could enable affordable ...Read More