Amateur radio really got started around the turn of the last century
when Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi flashed his first wireless signal across
the English Channel in 1899. Two years later, he telegraphed the letter "S"
from England to Newfoundland. This was the first successful trans-Atlantic radio
transmission.
Marconi considered himself an amateur and he inspired hundreds of others
to experiment with radio communications. In 1909, he was awarded the Nobel Prize
in physic for his workin wireless telegraphy.
Before government licensing of amateur operatorsand stations was instituted
in 1912, radio amateurs could operate on any wavelength they chose and could even
select their own call letters. The Radio Act of 1912 mandated the first Federal
licensing of radio stations and banised amateurs to the short wave lengths of less
than 200 meters. But these restrictions didn't stop them. Within a few short years,
there were thousands of licensed ham operators in the United States.
Since electromagnetic signals do not respect national boundaries, radio is
international in scope. National governments enact and enforce radio laws within a framework of international agreements which are overseen by the International Telecommunications Union. The ITU is a worldwide United Nations agency headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The ITU divides the radio spectrum into a number of segments or frequency bands, with each band reserved for a particular use. Amateur radio is fortunate to have many bands allocated to it all across the radio spectrum. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission is the government agency responsible for the regulation of wire and radio communications. The FCC further allocates frequency bands to the various services in accordance with the ITU plan -- including the Amateur Service -- and regulates stations and operators. By international agreement, in 1927 the alphabet was apportioned among various nations for basic call sign use. The prefix letters K, N and W were assigned to the United States, which also shares the letter A with some other countries.

In the early years of amateur radio licensing in the U.S., the classes of licenses were designated by the letters "A," "B" and "C." The highest license class with the most privileges was "A." In 1951, the FCC dropped the letter designations and gave the license classes names. They also added a new Novice Class-- a one-year, non-renewable license for beginners that required a 5-wpm Morse Code speed proficiency and a 20-question written examination on elementary theory and regulations, with both tests taken before one licensed ham. In 1967, the Advanced Class was added to the Novice, Technician, General and Extra classes. The General exam required 13-wpm code speed, and the Extra Class required 20-wpm. Each of the five written examinations were progressively more comprehensive and formed what came to be known as the Incentive Licensing System. The idea was to get General Class amateurs to upgrade their license. Voice and CW privelages were taken away from General Class and reassigned to Advanced and Extra Class, which became the "incentive" to upgrade in exchange for increased telegraphy skill and electronic knowledge. Many General Class amateurs were furious that they had lost some spectrum privilages and had to pass more examinations to get them back. Some are still angry to this day! In the 70's, the Technician Class license became very popular because of the number of repeater stations appearing on the air that extended the range of VHF and UHF mobile stations and some very-large, hand-held equipment. It also was very fashionable to be able to patch your mobile radio into the telephone system, a practice which allowed hams to make telephone calls from their automobiles. IN 1979, the international Amateur Service regulations were changed to permit all countries to waive the manual Morse code proficiency requirement for "...stations making use exclusively of frequencies about 30 MHZ." This set the stage for the Technician "no-code" license.




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