[Hammarlund] Re Ham, The Real Story

[Duane Fischer, W8DBF]

Here is the exact post that appeared on this very list on Wednesday May 10, 2000
from Kenneth Crips, W7ITC. 	
w7itc@juno.com				
	
I will check the 1911 Congressional record if I can get to the
Government repository Library to  look.  But this sounds
like the answer.  The thesis will still be on file at Harvard,
is anybody on the list close enough to Harvard to check it out?
The Harvard amateur radio club is the oldest college ham club
in the US.  I used to make a living as a research archivist and
I have a degree in history.  In those days if I came up with
something like this with these references, which of course
I would check out, I would say this is it.
**********************************************************
                          ========================
                          Origin of the Term "Ham"
                          ========================

       Have you ever wondered why we radio amateurs are called "Hams"?
Well it goes something like this--the word ham was applied in 1908 and
was  the call letters of one of the first amateur wireless stations
operated by  some members of the Harvard Radio Club.  They were Albert
Hyman, Bob Almy  and Peggie Murray.  At first they called their station
Hyman-Almy-Murray. Tapping out such a long name in code soon called for a
revision, and they changed it to Hy-Al-Mu, using the first two letters of
each name.  Early in
1909 some confusion resulted between signals from HYALMU and a Mexican
ship named Myalmo, so they decided to use only the first letter of each
name and identified their station as HAM.  In the early pioneer and
unregulated days of radio, amateur operators picked their own frequencies
and call letters.  Then, as now, some amateurs had better signals than
some commercial stations.  The resulting interference finally came to the
attention of Congressional
Committees in Washington and they gave much thought to proposed
legislation designed to critically limit amateur activity.  In 1911,
Albert Hyman chose the controversial Wireless Regulations Bill as the
topic of his thesis at Harvard.  His instructor insisted that a copy be
sent to Senator David Walsh, a member of the committee hearing the Bill.
The Senator was so impressed that he sent for Mr. Hyman to appear before
the Committee.  Hyman was put on the stand and described how the little
amateur station, HAM, was built, and he almost cried when he told the
crowded committee room that if the bill went
through, they would have to close up the station because they could not
afford the license fees and other requirements which were set up in the
Bill. The debate started and the little station, HAM, became a symbol of
all the little amateur stations in the country that were crying out to be
saved from the menace and greed of the big commercial stations who didn't
want them around.  Finally the Bill got to the floor of Congress and
every speaker talked about the poor little station, HAM.
That's how it all got started.  You can find the whole story in the
Congressional Record.  Nationwide publicity identified the station HAM
with amateurs.  From that time to this, and probably to the end of time,
in radio, "Every amateur is a ham".


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