Why Radio Amateurs Are Called “Hams”
From “
(with comments by W2ILP)
Have
you ever wondered why radio amateurs are called “Hams”? Well it goes like this:
The word “Ham” as applied in 1908 was the station call of the first amateur
wireless station operated by some amateurs of the Harvard Radio Club. They were
ALBERT S. HYMAN, BOB ALMY, and POOGIE MURRAY.
At first they called their station “HYMAN-ALMY-MURRAY”. Tapping out such
a long name in code soon became tiresome and called for a revision. They
changed it to “HYALMU”, using the first two letters of each of the names. Early
in 1910 some confusion resulted between signals from the amateur wireless
station “HYALMU” and a Mexican ship named “HYALMO”. They decided to use only
the first three letters of each name, and the station call became “HAM”. In the early pioneer days of unregulated
radio, amateur operators picked their own frequency and call letters. Then as
now the amateur stations had better signals than the commercial stations. The resulting interference came to the
attention of congressional committees in
APRIL FOOL! I don’t know if the above
article was in an APRIL issue of “
A ham who called himself Bubba had another
theory to add to the Deja thread. I
don’t remember Bubba’s call letters. His
theory went something like this:-
Some early Ham leaders in
In my opinion it is a good thing we are
not called “
Now back to why we are called
“Hams”. The word “Ham” was initially
considered to be a derogatory title for a radio amateur. Many amateurs did not
want to be called “Hams”. (There are now
some Hams who don’t want to be called “Amateurs” either.) The “H..” word was not to be spoken, but only
used, like Q code, in CW messages. The
ARRL didn’t use the H.. word in any of its early publications, and that may be
why its origin is uncertain. Like the RF
gain of antenna configurations, this subject became a no-no for early ARRL
editors, who avoided it lest they might start a heated debate or insult
members. As younger Hams took over the
ARRL, the feared legacy of the H…word seems to have diminished. Next month I’ll go over the three most
probable origins of the word HAM. W2ILP
(I Like Pastrami) Page 2
PRESIDENT’S PAGE
BY
KE2LJ
The
first thing I need to mention today is that our Holiday Party will occur
instead of a regular meeting. As we have done in the past, we’ll meet at the
Country Buffet in
I
have mentioned that we have to move the 745 repeater from where it is on Plant
14 because the E2C people need to get that space back. They loaned us shack
space, and tower space, and need to use it now. So I spoke to Public Affairs
here, and they contacted the Sector Management to get the ball moving. I was
since contacted by a Facilities Manager. I filled him in on the requirements,
specifically the altitude we need. But, from what I’m hearing, he might not want to go out of his
way to put up any towers. So we might get plopped on top on Plant 25, at a
lower height than we are at now. We are supposed to have a meeting soon to
discuss this. I don’t have a good feeling on this one, so wish me luck.
Also,
we are no longer having Club meetings at U.L. Bill (N2SFT) has retired from
there, and we don’t have a person inside that can get us in. Starting in
January, we’ll be meeting at our usual time in Ellsworth Allen Park in
Farmingdale. It’s just south of Rte 109. See our website for directions and a
map.
I’m
still working on emptying my house in preparation to putting it on the market
in early Spring 2007. We have been going through closets, cleaning them out one
at a time. I seem to have collected a ton of “projects” over the years, and I
have come to realize that I will never work on them again. So, into the trash
they go. My house is a lot emptier now than it was last year. But, there are
always some things of value that I don’t want to part with. They get wrapped,
and placed in boxes, and those boxes get labeled. Hopefully, when I am retired,
I will find time to work on them. My yard has a few things that need to be
disposed of before I call the moving truck. I have two or three really good HF
beam antennas there. Right now there is a TH3 and a TH6 looking for a home. The
TH6 is an exceptional, high gain beam that works really great. And I really
don’t want much for these guys, so make me an offer. Also, I expect that the
antennas at NN2C’s house will become available soon. He has a Force12 on a
rooftop tripod. This is a really good setup for anyone who can’t put up a
tower, but would like a good HF antenna as the sunspot cycle starts increasing
and the bands load up with good DX. Let me know if you are interested in any of
this. It’s time for me to get rid of it.
–Pat
KE2LJ
Page 3
GRUMMAN AMATEUR RADIO CLUB
MINUTES OF GENERAL MEETING 3/16/2005
Pete, N2PYV,
secretary, was not present.
The
meeting was called to order by Pat at
TREASURERS REPORT – Ed, WB2EAV REPEATERS –Gordon not present.
Finances continue to be in good shape. Both repeaters are working. No
activity.
VE REPORT –
Bob, W2ILP NET
REPORT- Zack, WB2PUE
The
VE session for February had to be
There was average activity on both the
canceled due to a heavy snow fall, which 40
Meter and 2 Meter WAG nets.
occured just at the scheduled session time.
WAG ACTIVITY – Bob, W2FPF
No activity.
The
program was a VCR tape, brought to the meeting by Marty Miller, NN2C. The tape was very professionally made and we
all thank Marty for bringing it.
It
was about a DX expedition to
GARC NETS:
40 Meters: 7.289 MHz at 7:30 AM EST
Sundays.
20 Meters: 14.275 MHz at 12 Noon EST
Wednesdays.
2 Meters (via repeaters): 146.745
MHz (-.600)at 8:30 PM EST Thursdays.
145.330 MHz (- .600) at 9:00 PM EST Thursdays.
[Tone for
both repeaters is 136.5 Hz]
(ARES/RACES) Mondays
MEETINGS
General Meetings of the GARC
are held on the third Wednesday of each month, starting at 5:30 PM. The meetings are usually held at the
Underwriters Lab,
GARC WEB SITE
The web site of the GARC can
be found at http://www.qsl.net/wa2lqo/ Webmaster is Pat Masterson KE2LJ. Pictures of GARC activities, archives of
newsletters, roster of members, and other information about the GARC may be
found there.
FOR
Heathkit SB-102 (needs work),
with matching Power Supply (works OK)
$100.00
Call ZAK, WB2PUE @
(631)667-4628
Internet Links of the Month for Internerds
The information below was
given to me by Dick Pav, K2RFP, who is a member of the Radio Central Amateur
Radio Club. Dick not only gave me
permission to use his software, but he gave me permission to tell about it
here. If you want to keep in touch with
Dick yourself, his
e-mail address is: [email protected] It is a good idea to get on his e-mailing
list, as he is constantly updating his software. He uses the handle “whitehat” for e-mail.
Anyway this is what he sent to me as recently as March 21, 2005.
This is software for printing
your own QSL cards, matching envelopes, and also a very complete logging
program. I first downloaded and tried
the software last year and it worked fine, even on my old computer. I don’t know how he keeps finding reasons to
update improvements but I will now copy his last e-mail information here:-
From “whitehat”:
I recompiled the envelope
program and uploaded it. I downloaded it
and it’s OK.
I also made a slight change
in the cardmaker program and uploaded it.
Works fine.
Here are the links.
QSL cards: Build: 4.03,211’
http://www.Geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/2168/zip/ham-qsl-cards.zip
QSL envelopes: Build:
5.01,098’
http://www.Geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/.2168/zip/ham-qsl-envelope.zip
QSO logbook: Build: 1.01,397’
http://www.Geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/2168/zip/ham-qso-logbook.zip
PUZZLE
Here is another cryptogram.
It is short and no author is indicated.
This should make it more difficult.
Sometimes things are said in jokes that couldn’t be said seriously. Sometimes things are said in cryptograms that
couldn’t be said in jokes. I promise to
keep all cryptograms I put here G rated and non political, because puzzles may
mean different things to different people.
Your editor
HSEN OWSJ
SUD, ZQ’T ERKVKWZTS;
HSEN OWSJ
QAS, ZQ’T WDTKWHP.
Solution to last month’s
cryptogram:
A MAN WITH WINGS LARGE ENOUGH
AND DULY ATTACHED MIGHT LEARN TO OVERCOME THE RESISTANCE OF THE AIR, AND
CONQUERING IT SUCCEED IN SUBJUGATING IT AND RAISE HIMSELF ON IT. –LEONARDO DA VINCI—
FUZZY LOGIC? By w2ilp (Imprecise
There has been a great deal
of misunderstanding about the term “fuzzy logic” and this has led to many
engineers calling various systems fuzzy systems that are not fuzzy and to jokes
about the very definition of fuzzy logic being fuzzy. The truth is that most old engineers never
learned about fuzzy logic in college.
Some learned about it from an article in “The IEEE Spectrum”, which they
did not read completely and thus they had only fuzzy ideas about what can be
technically defined as a fuzzy system, and what can not. All they learned from the article was that
Lotfi Zedah of UC at Berkley had defined something that was supposed to be
fuzzy, and from then on anything that they were not so sure about became
grandfathered (Zedah means grandfather)
into the domain of fuzziness. You can
search the web for FUZZY LOGIC and learn about it but I will try to explain it
here as simply as possible, without taking more than the space left in this newsletter
to do so.
Before
there were digital computers, lots of systems worked entirely using analog
devices. A usual part of analog control
systems was what were called follow up feedback servos. This was basically a servo motor which
mechanically drove a potentiometer or resolver and sometimes other rotating
devices. A driven rotating device
potentiometer or resolver would feed back a DC voltage or an AC voltage and AC
phase which was compared to a DC or AC voltage and/or phase. The servo motor would run until the output
device nulled out, which means it achieved close to zero voltage and/or phase
difference. The original voltages could
come from sensors or be computed by analog operational amplifiers, which could
perform various arithmetic and error rate computations by scaling
voltages. And that is basically how
analog computers operated. Now we use digital computers for the guts of most
computer systems rather than analog operational amplifiers and the programmers
get involved in developing software for the computers to drive industrial machinery
or whatever the analog systems used to drive.
Computers work with Boolean Logic and they use digital numbers, just
like calculators do. Microprocessors
allow computers to perform with higher speeds and more flexibility than the
analog hardware could achieve, but also must be told what to do by software
that must be well designed to do even simple tasks in real time steps. The trouble is that the digital resolution
may be far too precise for what is practically required if we program absolute
numerical values into it. Thus Zedah
concluded that we need to define a set of logic commands that would not make
the computations so nit picking that a practical real time solution could not
be achieved in a practical real time.
This was already being done in both analog and digital systems, but
Zedah defined it in program command terms by recognizing “If” and “If not”
logic commands to replace absolute numerical commands. The truth is that your old mechanical bread
toaster is a fuzzy system, simply because it senses the thermal conditions and
pops the bread out when the condition you want it to pop the bread out is
satisfied. The bread toaster was not
told exactly when numerically or at exactly what numeric temperature to pop the
bread out, so it could be called a fuzzy system. Now I got into a big debate with some
“experts” who called the Hellschreiber mode a fuzzy system. Hellschreiber is a digital mode that produces
typed characters on a computer monitor screen.
It was originally used in
The
characters are made up of black pixels, which are simply the same as CW dots
and dashes, only sent a lot faster. An
asynchronous scan puts them into a 7 by 7 matrix. When the characters appear on the screen in
a high noise background level they appear “fuzzy”, but this does not make
Hellschreiber a fuzzy system. It is true
that human word recognition can help to read message words in noise that the
computer might not be able to decode to an ASCII font itself, but still that is
not any reason to claim that a fuzzy logic loop is involved, unless we think
about the recognition loop that may exist in the human brain itself. In my opinion the brain is not a part of the
system because it is intrinsic to human sensory functions that use many factors
in recognition that couldn’t even be defined by Marvin Minsky (author of
“Society of the Mind”). Fuzzy logic
depends on an overall feedback control
scheme. There is no real time feedback
involved with Hellschreiber. The sending
station can not know in real time if any hams receiving its CQ message can read
it. The sending station can do nothing
to alter its signal in real time to help the receiving ham or hams to be better
able to read the signal once it has been transmitted. There is no control loop. As far as the communications system itself
goes there is nothing fuzzily logical about it. If the human mind is a fuzzy system then
everything we see or sense is fuzzy and the entire world is fuzzy. How can we call everything our brain senses
“fuzzy” “if” we can’t logically define anything our brain senses that is “not
fuzzy”? This is indeed a paradox. Thus I have to limit my definition to
Zedah’s definition of fuzzy logic, which only works if “If” and “If not” are
logical possibilities. If you agree with
this definition it is not fuzzy. If you
don’t agree with it, it is not fuzzy…but if you aren’t sure at this time it
might be fuzzy for you.. Nah…It is too
late now for me to respond to any feedback from the readers of this or to wake
up anyone who fell asleep while reading it.
“CQ de WA2LQO”, like all newsletters, is an open loop system. Your response (if any) is too late.
CQ de WA2LQO March 2005 VOL.
78, NO. 3 EDITOR Bob Wexelbaum W2ILP (631) 499-2214 CONTRIBUTING WRITERS PAT MASTERSON, KE2LJ PETE RAPELJE, N2PYV And all the members of GARC (we hope!) CQ de WA2LQO is published monthly by
the Grumman Amateur Radio Club for its members and friends. Send articles and
amateur equipment advertisements to: KE2LJ ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS If you want to
submit articles or amateur equipment ads via e-mail do the following: 1. For
submission direct to editor call him at above number to set up a transfer. 2. For e-mail
transfer: Internet Address As the editor of
this newsletter, I do not want to simply copy articles that appeared
elsewhere. I have invited several
hams to write articles for us and I hope they will provide some original
stuff. In this Information Age, you don’t have to go to a library to get
access to portions of many publications and often entire articles. I could
just put a list of web addresses here and not write a newsletter. But I won’t… even if I have to do some
writing myself. The ARRL board has
sent a petition to the FCC which would change the designations of signals
within ham radio sub bands. The
petition is to designate by bandwidth instead of by modes. Some
hams are narrow minded, others are broader. Many don’t care. Ham Radio means different things to different people. w2ilp GRUMMAN
AMATEUR RADIO CLUB OFFICERS FOR 2006 President
Pat Masterson KE2LJ
V01-01 516-346-7125 Vice President Gordon
Sammis KB2UB Retiree 631-666-7563 Secretary Peter
Rapelje N2PYV Retiree
516-676-0694 2Yr Board Member
Zack Zilavy WB2PUE Retiree 631-667-4628 2Yr Board Member
Bob Christen W2FPF 1Yr Board Member
Bob Wexelbaum W2ILP Retiree 631-499-2214 1Yr Board Member
Jack Cotterell WA2PYK
Retiree 516-249-0979 Trustee
WA2LQO Ray Schubnel W2DKM Retiree STANDING
COMMITTEE CHAIRMEN Meeting
Programs Contact a Board Member FCC
Exam Coord. Bob Wexelbaum W2ILP
631-499-2214
EDITORIAL
Treasurer Ed Gellender WB2EAV X02-14 516-575-0013
2YrBoard Member Dave Ledo AB2EF
TECHNICAL
BITS
I will continue to write about communications systems
here. The simplest system for the radio
communication of messages is Morse Code.
The
Morse system, originally used on land lines was quite different than the CW
system which Hams learned to use and love on radio bands. The original system used a simple
electromagnetic clicker as a receiver.
It produced a click sound when a DC voltage was applied and another
click sound when the voltage was removed.
The original Morse Code (later known as the Continental Code or American
Code) differed somewhat from the radio Morse Code (known as the International
Morse Code). Some of the letters were
different in the original code and some of them depended on spacing that differed
from the spacing of dots and dashes in the radio Morse. Land line telegraphers were highly skilled in
order to read the clicking code.
Originally S.F.B. Morse did not think it could be read by humans and
planned to have it punch paper tape.
Humans took on the challenge of being better than the tape devices at
copying weak clicks and schools for the click readers arose. It is interesting to know that some the
original land line telegraphers were still alive when I first was interested in
being an SWL and a ham. The FCC made
sending clicking codes illegal on most ham bands. But the clickers still wanted to use their
click copying skills. They were allowed
by FCC regulations to do so only on the 11 Meter ham band. The 11 Meter band was known as the garbage
band because there was diathermy, model control, and other odds and ends
permitted on it, as well as hams with strange modes, before it became the
channelized Citizen’s Band. I guess all
of the clicking Hams are sk by now. I
wonder if all of the CW toners will someday also be silent?. w2ilp