Welcome! This is a tour of amateur radio history, beginning around the turn of the last century. It unfolds blog-style in periodic installments or chapters .

This table of contents is useful whether you’re new to this site or have been following it for a while. It presents stories in chronological order. The Chapters page lists the same contents but with the most recent first, proceeding backward in the order in which they were posted (which is also nearly always historically reverse chronological order). The site reads best chronologically, but you are welcome to jump in at any point. Reading in random order might get confusing, though, since some installments refer back to events described in earlier ones.

If you’re new here, the best way to start is to begin at the beginning with the Introduction, followed by the Prologue. At the top of each page are links (at left and right) to the next and previous posts in the sequence.

73,

Chris Codella, W2PA, author

John Pelham, W1JA, editor

Phil Johnson, W2SQ, editor

Table of Contents



Introduction – An introduction to the site and how to use it.

Prologue – Background and intent

Part One (ca. 1886–1917)



Beginnings – The first amateurs

The Squeak Box – Kids with keys

The First Regulations – The end of free range hams

Getting Organized – Collaboration extends range to a continent

QST at the Beginning – A new amateur wireless magazine

A Patriotic and Dignified Effort – Relevance to the nation, public service

Humor, Poetry and Rotten Rants – It’s fun too

Technical Writing – Professionals and amateurs, sometimes the same

Spark Radio – The damped wave

Aerials, Attachments, and Audibility – Wires, gaps, and phones

The Audion – The third electrode’s the charm

The Relay’s the Thing – A blueprint for passing messages

Trunk Lines – Cross-country paths and star stations

Cooperation and QRM – Sharing the air

Regulations and Enforcement, Hard and Soft – A process forms around the 1912 law

Strangely Behaving Signals – Propagation is more complicated than it seems

Transcons – Relaying across the country and back.

The Lid – The war puts an end to amateurs’ operations

Shut Down and Called Up – Hams are off the air at home, then back on overseas



Part Two (ca. 1918–1923)



Waking up – Hams begin to return home from war

Naval Maneuvers – Amateur radio comes under renewed threats

Liberty – The ban on operating is finally lifted

New Hams(F.) – The “fraternity,” not

Armstrong in QST – Scientist, engineer… amateur

Freaks – What makes signals fade?

QSS Tests – Hams and the Bureau of Standards seek an answer.

Spark to CW – Renewed experimentation and an inexorable trend

Radiotelephone – Beginnings of phone transmissions and broadcasts

Strays—The Twenties Begin

Transcons at Record Speed – The air falls silent as hams run for records

The Chicago Plan – Urban hams get rowdy – a model of cooperation results

Crossings – The first amateur radio transatlantic tests (in three parts)

Crossings I—Aquitania

Crossings II—Ardrossan

Crossings III—Accolades

What is an Amateur? – Distinguishing transmitting from broadcasting

Broadcast Boundaries – A first national radio conference

Twenty-two in ’22 – Allocations to accommodate broadcasting

Crossings IV—The Reply – This time, Europe transmits too

First Band, Top Band – Amateurs are assigned a band of wavelengths for the first time

Part Three (ca. 1923– )

New Circuits – Improving receivers for shortwaves

Transpacifics – Reaching all continents

High Latitudes and Low Wavelengths – Amateur radio in the arctic

The Fourth Time’s the Charm – The first QSOs across the ocean

Call Sign Confusion – Amateurs cope with an absence of national prefixes

Scooped – Hams set new records on shortwaves, and WNP returns

Onward, Downward – Experimenting with shortwaves accelerates

Call and Card – The CQ and the QSL

WWV – Hams get help calibrating

Six Segments, Sans Spark – New bands, new regulations

April in Paris – An international amateur radio organization is formed

DX Records and Shortwave Reflections – A flurry of DX firsts, all on shortwaves

Army Vacation or Navy Cruise – Hams collaborate with the US military

North Again – This time with Reinartz and shorter wavelengths

Strays – Traffic, 200, and 20

Rare International Sport – the first DX contests

Wireless in Washington – Finally, a new law and bands

Wabbulation – Phone, and problems with frequency control

Treaty – International agreement on radio allocations

Third Parties – How is message traffic defined under the 1927 law?

Family Harmonics – Band allocations narrow under US and international regulation

Stability, Accuracy, Purity – The “1929-Type” Station – A new generation of equipment

Ramifications – Regional Fine Tuning and Phone – Effects of the 1927 law continue

Two Contests – The precursors to two present-day big ones

Strays – Perspectives on Amateur Radio, 1930 – The US, Maxim, Warner, and XYLs



Coming next:



New Decade, New Environment – Frequency control and signal quality take center stage

