What Is The Origin Of Ham?

Lots of theories...

I was asked by one of our current Basic class students about where the term ’Ham’ originated.  I’ve probably heard as many theories and myths as anyone but, if you search the Web for the origin of the term "HAM" for radio amateurs, you will find two or three accounts that are believable. The most common, and the one to which I ascribed to for many years was that it referred to ‘Ham-fisted (clumsy) CW operators’.

Why radio amateurs are called HAMS (from Florida Skip Magazine - 1959)
Have you ever wondered why radio amateurs are called "HAMS?" Well, it goes like this: The word "HAM" as applied to 1908 was the station call of the first amateur wireless stations 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 "HY-AL-MU," using the first two letters of each of their names. Early in 1901 some confusion resulted between signals from amateur wireless station "HYALMU" and a Mexican ship named "HYALMO." They then decided to use only the first letter 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, some amateurs had better signals than commercial stations. The resulting interference came to the attention of congressional committees in Washington and Congress gave much time to proposed legislation designed to critically limit amateur radio activity. In 1911 ALBERT HYMAN chose the controversial Wireless Regulation Bill as the topic for his Thesis at Harvard. His instructor insisted that a copy be sent to Senator David Walsh, a member of one of the committees hearing the Bill. The Senator was so impressed with the thesis is that he asked Hyman to appear before the committee. Hyman took the stand and described how the little station was built and almost cried when he told the crowded committee room that if the Bill went through that they would have to close down the station because they could not afford the license fees and all the other requirements which the Bill imposed on amateur stations. 

Congressional debate began on the Wireless Regulation Bill and little station "HAM" became the symbol for all the little amateur stations in the country crying to be saved from the menace and greed of the big commercial stations who didn't want them around. The Bill finally got to the floor of Congress and every speaker talked about the "...poor little HAM station.” That's how it all started. Nation-wide publicity associated station "HAM" with amateur radio operators. From that day to this, and probably until the end of time in radio an amateur is a "HAM."

Is it true? The facts are difficult to verify. Wiki calls it a “widely circulated but fanciful tale,” and the 1909 Wireless Registry, May edition listed Earl C. Hawkins of Minneapolis, Minnesota, as operating with the callsign "H.A.M."   You decide which origin to believe.

~ John VE7TI 
 Communicator Editor

Thunderstruck: A Novel

This is a 'who-dunit' with a radio twist...

In the May 2017 Communicator we wrote in QRM about Marconi and Maskelyne, and their attempts to discredit each other. There was mention of a book, ‘Thunderstruck’ written by Erik Larson.

Erik Larson tells the factual and interwoven stories of two men, Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication, and how their lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.

Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners, scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed, and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, "the kindest of men," nearly commits the perfect crime.

With superb narrative skills, Erik Larson guides these parallel narratives toward a relentlessly suspenseful meeting on the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate. Thunderstruck presents a vibrant portrait of an era of séances, science, and fog, inhabited by inventors, magicians, and Scotland Yard detectives, all presided over by the amiable and fun-loving Edward VII as the world slid inevitably toward the first great war of the twentieth century. Gripping from the first page, and rich with fascinating detail about the time, the people, and the new inventions that connect and divide us, Thunderstruck is splendid narrative history from a master of the form.
An excerpt:

“One night, during a storm, an engineer named W. W. Bradfield was sitting at the Wimereux transmitter, when suddenly the door to the room crashed open. In the portal stood a man disheveled by the storm and apparently experiencing some form of internal agony. He blamed the transmissions and shouted that they must stop. The revolver in his hand imparted a certain added gravity. Bradfield responded with the calm of a watchmaker. He told the intruder he understood his problem and that his experience was not unusual. He was in luck, however, Bradfield said, for he had “come to the only man alive who could cure him.” This would require an “electrical inoculation,” after which, Bradfield promised, he “would be immune to electro-magnetic waves for the rest of his life.” The man consented. Bradfield instructed him that for his own safety he must first remove from his person anything made of metal, including coins, timepieces, and of course the revolver in his hand. The intruder obliged, at which point Bradfield gave him a potent electrical shock, not so powerful as to kill him, but certainly enough to command his attention. The man left, convinced that he was indeed cured.”

Erik Larson is the author of three other national bestsellers: In the Garden of Beasts, The Devil in the White City, and Isaac’s Storm, which have collectively sold more than 5.5 million copies. His books have been published in seventeen countries and are widely available in print, digital and audio formats.

Aside from being an interesting ‘who-dunit’, it is also a story with enough technical detail that it will interest those in the Amateur Radio community.

How Well Is Emergency Amateur Radio Supported Across Canada?

A wide variety of commitments...

How well is amateur radio for emergencies supported by governments across Canada?
While looking online for inspiration for this months Communicator, I began to notice that there weren't many results when I googled certain word groups regarding governments, amateur radio, and emergencies. So that got me wondering what type of support different Provinces give to their Amateur Radio ARES groups and where British Columbia fits in. Yes, I know SEPAR isn’t a typical ARES group, because we serve the City of Surrey first and foremost, to provide a communications link between the City and services within the City whose communications has failed. But that, in my view, is just an ARES group with a twist. 

The results I discuss below are based on my Google search parameter of “amateur radio emergency [Province name or City name]”. As I discuss this please remember, I’m talking about the support shown for amateur radio on government websites and not Radio Amateurs of Canada websites. There is no shortage of RAC and local club support for emergency communications in Canada.

BC, as you may know, has PERCS (Provincial Emergency Radio Communications Service) which is strongly integrated with the BC Government. The Emergency Radio Communications webpage of the BC government also lists Amateur Radio as a source of emergency communications. Several municipalities in BC actively support their Amateur Radio, for example - SEPAR in Surrey, and VECTOR in Vancouver. In the other jurisdictions, outside BC, there does not seem to be this support from government. 

In Ontario, it seems more of a passing thought (at least when looking through the government websites). EmComm (Emergency Communications Ontario Association) lists Emergency Management Ontario as a support site, but Emergency Management Ontario, which is the governments site, does not reciprocated to EmComm. The City of Toronto in their emergency plan does include amateur radio, but it’s hidden in a PDF document and not referred to on their City website like SEPAR is in Surrey.

In Alberta, Edmonton mentions Amateur Radio briefly on their City website. Calgary also mentions amateur radio on their City website but only to recognize that antenna structures need to have controls put on them. Nothing is said about the benefits amateur radio can provide in a disaster.

The province of Quebec has 4 words (3 words when translated to English) as a mention on the government website -“réseaux de radio-amateur” [Amateur Radio Networks]. This is under the heading of “Les partenaires de la municipalité” [The Partners of the Municipality] on their webpage discussing the role of municipal partners during an emergency. 

I couldn’t find any reference on provincial websites in Nunavut, Newfoundland, Saskatchewan or Manitoba.

Nova Scotia makes no mention of the role amateur radio would play in the provincial plan, but as a slight aside, there is a very good article on one of their journalism pages. It explains the benefits of Amateur Radio and how it was used during the crash of flight 111 in Peggy’s Cove.

The Northwest territories like the City of Toronto only speaks of Amateur Radio in their Emergency Plan, which is again a PDF document. The discussion in the NWT plan only suggests that Amateur Radio should be part of the plan. 

The Yukon Territory does mention amateur radio, and if their is integration with the government, I couldn’t find it on their web pages.

It’s a stark difference to BC where the Province links to PERCS and municipalities link to their Emergency Amateur Radio providers like SEPAR, VECTOR, Coquitlam, North Shore Emergency Management, etc.

It seems to me that it is important for the public to be aware of the inclusion of Amateur Radio in their emergency plans. While it’s important to be written into the Emergency plan, most residents will never read that document. Many will read about it however, if it’s published on the government websites, with a brief explanation of the benefits. Ideally, neighbourhoods should even be aware of the location of a neighbourhood ham operator so that they know they have a communicator at their disposal in an emergency. As it stand right now, at least in BC and Surrey especially, we are prominently integrated in emergency plans. Something I can’t say for the majority of the country. 

~ Roger VA7VH

Digital Set Up And Its Ups And Downs

Digital interfaces, N1MM and pulled hair...

Hi, I am VA7FMR And I am relatively new to the Ham World. I got my licence in November of 2015. You may remember my article about antennas and the problems and solutions to making a selection. I have progressed since then and have enjoyed making contacts around North America with my screwdriver Antenna installed on my patio rail.

This is the thing that I like about being a HAM operator, there are so many ways that you can have fun. For example, CAT control of your radio, or “Computer Assisted Tuning” of your radio. Now what could be more interesting than that. You just watch your frequency board in N1MM+ for example and Telnet puts up all of the new contacts that are on the air right now. Just click on one of the items listed on the board and the computer tunes your radio for you, contact made. If on the other hand, you turn your radio knob, the frequency board changes too. How neat is that? And what do you know, this leads us into the next exiting part of HAM radio, Digital Communication.

I was talking to one of our senior club members one Saturday morning and he asked me if I would like to join him at his radio shack to have a look at Digital Contesting. I came away from that morning thinking about all of the contacts we had made with just the push of a button. So again, just like my search for antennas when I first got my licence, I started searching for digital interfaces to hook up to my radio. Unfortunately, I did not learn a lesson from my antenna problems, I just went ahead looking for what I thought would be the best bang for my buck, big mistake. Since I also have an interest in Morse Code, an advert caught my eye on a web site based in the UK. It boasted that not only did their little black box provide CAT control but it also, in one box, provided two more of what I wanted, digital and CW. I can not of course provide the Manufacturers name of this mistake but I can tell you that it took a long time to realize that this unit did not live up to its claims. I struggled for weeks trying to make this beast work. 

The instruction manual, if you could call a photocopy of 6 sheets stapled together a manual, told me that when the USB cable from the unit is plugged into the computer, 3 com ports are assigned to the unit. It is easy to find out which com ports are assigned by using Windows Settings and then Device Manager to look at the com port numbers. Mine were 3-4-5. The manual told me to run a piece of software on his web page and it would look at the interface and tell me which com port was the CAT control com port. The software told me that CAT was on COM 4. Off I go to N1MM+ logger and in the setup window I tell N1MM that CAT is com 4 and I go through the setup procedure and look to see CAT working, not on your life. 

My Band Map stubbornly refused to talk to my radio. This was the start of a six week love and hate relationship between a black box and a very frustrated me. I went on the internet and found instructions that pretty much guaranteed to get you working. I had just replaced the four ink cartridges in my printer and I printed so many documents I ran out of ink in just the first two weeks. The paper and ink manufacturers loved this black box but I disliked it with a passion. On a whim, I went back into the setup of N1MM+ and told it that I was sorry but could I try another com port for CAT Control and I input COM 5 and did the setup thingy again and give that man an orange, it worked. I had CAT control. 

How could this be? The black box manufacturer told me that CAT was com 4 but here was my black box working on com 5. well winners can't be losers can they? On I went to get started in digital communications. I downloaded MMTTY and FLDIGY. In many of the documents I had downloaded I was told to setup MMTTY as a stand alone entity first. So, that is what I did. Since I had been told by the black box provider that com 3 was digital and com 5 was CW, I started the MMTTY installation with com 3. When setting up MMTTY, there are about 15-20 things that can be changed, one of the downloads gave me a pretty good inclination of what to set and what not to set. Having done the deed I tried MMTTY and nothing happened, no digital for me. Now I think you can see where I am going. If CAT was wrong at the black box, could it not follow that the manufacturer was wrong with the other two com ports. Sure enough, after several more days chasing my tail, I got MMTTY to trigger the black box using COM 4 not 3 as the black box manufacturer had stated. 

It was now time to incorporate all of this junk into N1MM+, you guessed it, not a chance in hell. Although CAT control worked fine the black box did not want to talk about Digital to anyone but it's self. Throughout this debacle I had been in constant contact with John VA7XB, now this guy has the patience of a very very patient man. He gave me lots of encouragement and when I felt like wrapping the black box around the refrigerator he came through with calm and patience. A few days into this saga, John had produced a Signalink USB device and suggested that I might like to try it. I wish that I had done as he asked day one. I was now at my Niece's house and had installed my 73' long wire antenna. 

I was going to be here looking after dogs and house whilst the family were away on vacation. The antenna was working like a charm and the BARTG digital contest was due to start in two days. I removed the dreaded black box and installed the Signalink and left it like that until the next day, I had to recoup my own patience quotient and recharge overnight. The next day I had MMTTY talking nicely to the Signalink, incorporated it into N1MM+ and after a false start and a recheck of settings my Icom 7100 went into transmit and I were a digital man at long last. I worked the contest over two days, total about six hours or less and I logged 80 Qso's, including 8 Japanese stations, 1 Mexican station and a Hawaii station for good luck. The remainder were in Canada as far away as Ontario and the United States as far as Connecticut and Florida. I had a ball, I can not impress upon you how good it felt to log stations thousands of kilometres away.

Well, was there a lesson learned here? There sure was but I should have learned it after my antenna fiasco. Do not go after the super fancy stuff and certainly never rely on a supplier off continent. I read on a public web page that the manufacturer of my unit thought that people who called for installation advice were stupid and inevitably hung up on the caller, what kind of after sale service is that? I can call anywhere in Canada for free on my cell phone so that is as far as I should have looked. After sale service is extremely important, particularly to newcomers to the hobby like me and some of you out there. KISS, Keep it simple stupid covers the above problem very well. Have I learned my lesson, I hope so.

~ Robert VA7FMR

Do Kids Still Enjoy Electronics Experimenter Kits?

My eldest grandson was about to have a birthday so as usual my wife and I discussed what would be appropriate for an eight-year-old. I thought back to my time as a youngster and decided that perhaps he was going to be old enough to start experimenting with electronics. 

My passion in that field started at about the same age when I was given a RadioShack 20-in-1 electronics experimenter set. I fondly recall spending hours upon hours building and rebuilding the projects and then carefully attempting to build some circuits of my own.
The projects were by no means complicated and, as I recall, there were several resistors, a couple capacitors, no integrated circuits at that time, but there were several transistors, enough to make a very basic AM radio that sounded horribly tinny but brought in several strong local stations like CKNW, CFUN and CKWX.


My brother, several years older than I, had purchased a Trio shortwave receiver from LaFayette Electronics at ‘House of Stein’ a Vancouver downtown Granville Street electronics store. He would spend hours in the evening listening to shortwave broadcasts from around the globe. He was not particularly electronics adept and at one occasion a great puff of smoke rose from his receiver when he tried some homebrew tuning. 

Undeterred he purchased another receiver of the same make and model and carried on although I never saw him trying to tune it again. To this day, the joke about whether he was ever able to receive Japan, carries on.

Try as I might I could never get beyond local radio stations with my kit. It wasn’t until several years later that I was given a very basic shortwave receiver kit, built from about a dozen parts, and therefore was not particularly sensitive although I could tune to Radio Moscow, Radio America and the BBC. I think back on those times as the spark that started my path in electronics and eventually to obtaining my amateur radio license. 

I was able to find a very nice kit by a company called Elenco via eBay. The kit boasts the ability to build up to 100 different projects. It includes three integrated circuits, one resistor, the battery box, a speaker, a motor and a number of modular connectors. The integrated circuits certainly cut down on the amount of wiring, but also opens up possibilities not available during my experimentation 50+ years ago. Things such as NOR gates, AND gates and other digital logic projects.

His birthday is in March and time will tell whether this will be as successful an investment as it was for me on my birthday. There are six hams in the family now and his mother passed the VECTOR Basic course with flying colours AND got her CW endorsement to boot, so I’m sure she will be supportive. I’ll try to update in due course as to how it worked out, but perhaps this will mark the birth of another VE7 2B in the family.

~ John VE7TI 
  Communicator Editor

HF Antennas In A Restricted Space

Experiments can be expensive

I want to share my experience with those of you who have recently passed their test and are looking for that perfect HF antenna that will suite their “New Shack” at their home location. My thoughts were focused on an antenna that would cover as many of the Ham bands as possible, that could be hidden on my apartment patio deck. I did, as most of you will, a lot of reading on the subject and eventually chose a Current Loop Antenna that was the rave in the UK and it set me back about $350 with shipping and tax. I set it up on my patio and I started to tune through the Ham bands and hardly heard a thing, I mean that, apart from static and a couple of stations, one in Alaska talking to a fellow in California, I heard nothing. I was beginning to think that there was something wrong with my Radio, a brand new Icom 7100 and John VA7XB very kindly invited me to his home and we attached my radio to his antenna. The radio immediately jumped to life with more stations than I could count. I tried several CQ calls and was rewarded with a reply from South Carolina some 2600 miles away, on 70 watts. What a thrill that was. Now knowing that my radio was in perfect shape, I again started to search for the perfect antenna.

Having proved that my radio was fine, I took the current loop antenna apart and put it where the proverbial squirrel stores his winter supplies and started looking for another antenna. I found an antenna called “The Tarheel Antenna” this is a motorized Multi band antenna with excellent ratings, it is a mobile Antenna that I could mount to my patio railing and also mount it on my vehicle for away from home outings. Well, although I could hear more stations compared to the Current loop, they were so far below the noise level that they were not useful at all. Having spent another $700 plus on the Tarheel I still did not have a working antenna. All of the successful Hams will tell you that your success is based on Antenna, Antenna, Antenna.

I have reached the conclusion that my location is in a null zone created by the apartment blocks in which I live. The HF Spectrum is a fickle thing sent to try us. Imagine, if you will, a letter L reversed, the bottom leg runs North South and the vertical leg runs East West, the vertical leg being south of the bottom leg. I live on the East side of the bottom leg on the second floor, rite in the corner created by the bottom leg and the vertical leg. My location is protected by both of the apartment blocks.

My mistake was trying to buy the antenna that would cover the most HAM bands as possible, right up front, before checking to see if there were any signals at all. My advise to you and the whole reason for this small article, is to choose an antenna that covers one band, lets say the 20 meter band. Try to buy the cheapest antenna you can find, within reason, try to stay away from the Chinese antennas, they are usually of very poor quality. Put up the antenna at night if you are like me and live in an apartment, if you live in a house you will have a lot more room to play with than apartment dwellers. If you can hear contacts that are well above the noise level, have fun and start to build your log book. If like me, you hear little or nothing, you have just saved yourself a ton of money. Buying antennas can be very expensive as I have found to my sorrow.

I have not, however given up. There are lots of opportunities as a mobile station with my Tarheel antenna and setting up, as in the Field Day event, in a park with a long wire antenna. In my opinion, the whole idea of being a HAM is to have as much fun as possible with what you have and I certainly intend to do so.

~ Robert VA7FMR

Robert found his solution sometime later, see https://ve7sar.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-novemberdecember-communicator.html - Ed

Our Antenna Workshop

An opportunity to practice what we preach

We’re now between Basic courses and we constantly tune-up our methods, learning from feedback. Like other licensing courses, we cover the Introduction to Amateur Radio, Ohms Law, basic components, propagation, transmission lines, antennas and block diagrams of receivers and transmitters. The big section toward the end is Rules and regulations. It’s big because it typically counts for 25 to 30% of the exam questions and we leave it so students have enough material to relate those rules to the technical part of the course. 

On a Saturday after the transmission lines and antennas have been covered, around Week 4, we host the class at an antenna building workshop. It is one of those sessions that is hands-on and sets aside our course from the many others that are offered. In this session the students build a dual band roll-up J-pole antenna that they cut, solder and tune, then take home as their first antenna. It is a fun session and brings home many of the points that are discussed in the classroom sessions and offers many their first exposure to solder smoke.

All course attendees receive a complimentary membership to SARC for the current year, and hopefully we will end up with some new permanent members and hams who will embrace our hobby.

Re-instated in the course is an extra week. We have been teaching for 7 weeks with the exam on the 8th. We will now add a week after the formal teaching but before the exam. That will give the students an extra week to study and allow us to add a week to include the 'how to get started' session that we trialed at our January 2020 general meeting. It was a success, see https://ve7sar.blogspot.com/2020/01/get-on-air.html