[RVRC] Why we have 'amateur radio' today...

[Marvin Bronstein]

As most of you RVRC members know, I am a staunch supporter of The ARRL.  For many very obvious reasons, primarily, because we owe the fact that we have this powerful 'voice' to support and advance amateur radio in Washington, D.C. and at The ITU in Geneva.

A short 'read' here will demonstrate that The ARRL is credited with saving amateur radio from total elimination in 1919!

Here is a short copy from the first QST MAGAZINE following WW I and the lifting of amateur radio prohibition.  

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April, 1919

"Letters received from all over the world indicate that a lot of fellows have only recently heard of the great Radio Bill that was introduced in Congress in December last, and which would have entirely eliminated Amateur Radio in the United States.
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The result was certainly typical of the way we A.R.R.L. people do things.  Washington was simply flooded with letters and telegrams of protest.

    The Board of Direction sent Mr. Maxim (Hiram Percy Maxim; ed) our President, down to Washington to appear at the hearing against the bill, and he with others did such a good job that the HOUSE COMMITTEE on MERCHANT MARINE and FISHERIES, declined to report the bill out of Committee.  In other words, the bill was absolutely killed. In our humble opinion one of the most serious of the fatal wounds given the bill was the public indignation administered by the attempt to eliminate amateur radio.

    We amateurs were able to establish the fact that we were one of the greatest assets the country possessed when the Great War broke out.  The Bill was primarily intended to make over to the Navy Department, the exclusive ownership and control of all radio in the United States, but the Board of Direction of our A.R.R.L. decided that this part of the bill was no concern of theirs, and therefore, they would make no comment upon it.  But the ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE THE AMATEUR was very positively a concern of theirs, and they went to it with a will.  It is thought by some, that the Bill would have gone through had it not been for the attempt to eliminate the amateur.

    The killing of the Bill leaves amateur radio under the old and very good law of 1913, and if the Navy Department relinquish their control with the passing of the state of war and the condition of ''public peril'', we shall go back to our old and much respected boss, the Department of Commerce.''

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I encourage all RVRC members who have not yet joined ARRL in support of our beloved hobby and endeavor to join ARRL. Currently there are major battles ensuing over RF interference issues and ''spectrum reassignments along with international negotiations for spectrum that need our support lest we lose it.
The ARRL also affords members much valued assistance in technical matters, operating matters, antenna restrictions, training and education among other valued benefits.

73,
Marv, K2VHW
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