BY JOURNAL TIMES STAFF
Ham means an amateur, ham-fisted radio operator of poor performance and courtesy. That’s the definition offered by G.M. Dodge in “The Telegraph Instructor,” a guidebook for wireless telegraphy in pre-radio days.
The first wireless operators were land-line telegraphers who left their offices and went to sea or to the coast and manned telegraph stations. They brought with them the tradition and older language of their profession.
Back in the early days of wireless radio, in the 1900s, every station occupied the same wavelength.
The spark signals were that broad, and everyone competed for time and signal supremacy.
Well, the amateur stations were more powerful than the professionals. Two amateurs in the same town could effectively jam all other operators in the area.
When this happened, commercial operators, usually in shipping, would telegraph the individual with “SRI OM THOSE #&$! HAMS ARE JAMMING YOU.”
In English, that means “Sorry, Old Man, those (insert expletive) hams are jamming you.”
Unfamiliar with what the term really meant, the amateurs picked up the term and ran with it. This is the explanation for ham offered by the ARRL, the American Radio Relay League, which is the national organization for HAM radio enthusiasts.
An amateur radio club in Montana has an extensive listing of potential additional meanings for ham on its Web site.
Check the Web site of the Great Falls Amateur Radio Club for more speculation on the ham in ham radio http://www.w7eca.org/whyham.htm
Source: www.journaltimes.com
