From the 1969 ARRL "Radio Amateur's Operating Manual"


  Every amateur should know and tremble at the history and origins of 
this fearsome instrument for punishment of amateurs who cultivate bad 
operating habits and who nourish and culture their meaner instincts on 
the air...

   This is the Wouff Hong.

  It was invented -or at any rate, discovered- by "The Old Man" himself, 
just as amateurs were getting back on the air after World War One. "The 
Old Man" (who later turned out to be Hiram Percy Maxim, W1AW, Co-founder 
and first president of ARRL) first heard the Wouff Hong described amid 
the howls and garble of QRM as he tuned across a band filled with signals 
which exemplified all the rotten operating practices then available to 
amateurs, considering the state of the art as they knew it.  As amateur 
technology and ingenuity have advanced, we have discovered new and 
improved techniques of rotten operating, but we're ahead of our story.

  As The Old Man heard it, the Wouff Hong was being used on some hapless 
offender so effectively that he investigated. After further effort, 
"T.O.M." was able to locate and identify a Wouff Hong.  He wrote a number 
of QST articles about contemporary rotten operating practices and the use 
of the Wouff Hong to discipline the offenders.

  Early in 1919, The Old Man wrote in QST "I am sending you a specimen of 
a real live Wouff Hong which came to light out here . . . Keep it in the 
editorial sanctum where you can lay hands on it quickly in an emergency." 
 The "specimen of a real live Wouff Hong" was presented to a meeting of 
the ARRL Board and QST reported later that "each face noticeably blanched 
when the awful Wouff Hong was . . . laid upon the table."  The Board voted 
that the Wouff Hong be framed and hung in the office of the Secretary of 
the League and there it remains to this day, a sobering influence on every 
visitor to League Headquarters who has ever swooshed a carrier across a 
crowded band.

  The Old Man never prescribed the exact manner in which the Wouff Hong 
was to be used, but amateurs need only a little imagination to surmise 
how painful punishments were inflicted on those who stoop to liddish 
behavior on the air.