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

[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

This is a response from the California Historical Radio Society, Bart Lee,
K6VK received on the radio-officers googlegroup email list. This is the
earliest reference to amateurs being hams that I have found, from the 1906
PH station log (San Francisco):


"8:30 a.m. The combined forces of 3,000 ham factories are bursting forth
with their weird codes upon the quietude of this lovely rainy morning."



Excerpt: DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company San Francisco station PH 1906
log; from *Pacific Radio News*, 1917.


I think that 19th Century landline telegraphers referred to bad sending as
"ham" -- as in hamfisted.
== ==

73 de Bart, K6VK ##

-- --
Bart Lee, K6VK, CHRS Archivist and Fellow, AWA Fellow, ARRL Liaison
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