[CW] Origin of the term "hams" as applied to amateur radio operators.

[David J. Ring, Jr.]

In the very early days of wireless telegraphy, now termed as "radio", 
both stations and operators were not yet licensed. Licensing started 
under the Commerce Department.

Radio Act of 1912, the Department of Commerce issued Amateur First Grade 
and Amateur Second Grade operator licenses beginning in December of that 
year.[9] Amateur First Grade required an essay-type examination and five 
(later ten) words per minute code examination before a Radio Inspector 
at one of the Department's field offices. This class of license was 
renamed Amateur Class in 1927 and then Amateur First Class in 1932. 
Amateur Radio licensing in the United States began in mid-December 1912.

At first, the Amateur Second Grade license required the applicant to 
certify that he or she was unable to appear at a field office but was 
nevertheless qualified to operate a station. Later, the applicant took 
brief written and code exams before a nearby existing licensee. This 
class of license was renamed Temporary Amateur in 1927.

The Department of Commerce created a new top-level license in 1923, the 
Amateur Extra First Grade, that conveyed extra operating privileges. It 
required a more difficult written examination and a code test at twenty 
words per minute. In 1929, a special license endorsement for "unlimited 
radiotelephone privileges" became available in return for passing an 
examination on radiotelephone subjects. This allowed amateurs to upgrade 
and use reserved radiotelephone bands without having to pass a difficult 
code examination.

"hams".

The earliest reference I have found to this is in an article in the 
January 1902 issue of McClure's Magazine.

I'm sure that there are earlier one's but this is the earliest I ever 
tripped across.
I've included the relevant section below out of a much longer article 
titled, "Telegraph Talk and Talkers" by L. C. Hall.

     An interesting side note about the PA can.
I have commonly seen cans in old photos of the triangular "Acme" style 
resonators but not in the rounded back "Mascot" style resonators.
What I find, however, is that the thin wood back of the Mascot (three 
lamination plywood in the real ones I have) itself resonates quite well 
itself whereas the thicker wood in the Acme does not but just reflects 
the sound.
Further, I have found it difficult to position a tobacco can in a Mascot 
resonator such that it stays in position whereas there are several can 
positions which work well in an Acme each giving a slightly different sound.

Just my two cents......The article excerpt:

THE SLANG OF THE WIRE
Like any other language, Morse has its patois -- a corrupted version of 
the purer speech used by the inexperienced or by those to whom nature 
has denied the finer perceptions of timing and spacing.

This patois might be called "hog-Morse."

It would be quite impossible to give even a rude idea of the humor 
contained, for the expert, in some of the corruptions of which hog-Morse 
is guilty.
These consist largely in closely joining elements which ought to be 
spaced, or in separating others that are meant to be close-coupled.

In the patois of the wires "pot" means "hot," "foot" is rendered "fool," 
"U. S. Navy" is "us nasty," "home" is changed to "hog," and so on.

If, for example, while receiving a telegram, a user of the patois should 
miss a word and say to you "6naz fimme q," the expert would know that he 
meant "Please fill me in." But there is no difficulty about the 
interpretation of the patois provided the receiver be experienced and 
always on the alert.

When, however, the mind wanders in receiving, there is always danger 
that the hand will record exactly what the ear dictates.

On one occasion, at Christmas time, a hilarious citizen of Rome, New 
York, telegraphed a friend at a distance a message which reached its 
destination reading, "Cog hog to rog and wemm pave a bumy tig."

It looked to the man addressed like Choctaw, and of course was not 
understood.
Upon being repeated, it read, "Come home to Rome, and we'll have a bully 
time."
Another case of confusion wrought by hog-Morse was that of the Richmond, 
Virginia, commission firm, who were requested by wire to quote the price 
on a carload of "undressed slaves."

The member of the firm who receipted for the telegram being something of 
a wag, wired back: "No trade in naked chattel since Emancipation 
Proclamation."
The original message had been transmitted by senders of hog-Morse, 
called technically "hams," and the receivers had absent-mindedly 
recorded the words as they had really sounded.

What the inquirer wanted, of course, was a quotation on a carload of 
staves in the rough.

     The mere sound of the styles of some transmitters is irresistibly 
comic.
One of these natural humorists may be transmitting nothing more than a 
string of figures, and still make you chuckle at the grotesqueness of 
his Morse.
It is an every-day thing to hear senders characterized as Miss Nancys, 
rattle-brains, swell-heads, or cranks, or "jays," simply because the 
sound of their dots and dashes suggests the epithets.

     When a telegram is being read by sound, the receiver is not 
conscious of the dots and dashes that make up the sentences.

The impression upon the ear is similar to that produced by spoken words.
Indeed, if an experienced telegrapher were asked suddenly what a certain 
letter is in dots and dashes, the chances are that he would hesitate 
before being able to answer. In view of this fact I should say that 
thinking in telegraphese is not possible, and in this point of 
comparison with a spoken tongue the Morse is deficient.

Curiously enough, however, as an aid to memory in the spelling of words 
the telegraphese is useful.

If a telegrapher should be in doubt as to the orthography of a word, 
whether it were spelt with an ie or an ei, for example, he would only 
have to sound it on an instrument or click it out on his teeth to dispel 
at once any uncertainty.
     Among the other interesting facts is that, in Morse, family 
resemblance is shown as often as in face and manner.

Furthermore, just as two persons of kindred temperaments, man and wife, 
say, who have been long associated, are said gradually to grow into a 
physical resemblance to each other.

So, in a like manner, two telegraphers who have worked a wire together 
for years insensibly mold their Morse each after the other's, until the 
resemblance between them is readily perceptible.

73, Chris Hausler