Haring, Kristen. Ham Radio's Technical Culture.

• Author: Friedman, Barry D.
• Position: Book review

Haring, Kristen. Ham Radio's Technical Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. xviii + 220 pages. Paper, $14.95.

Directed by the theories of the great mathematicians and physicists Michael Faraday (1791-1867), James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), and Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857-1894) that unlocked the mystery of electromagnetic waves, several curious individuals--including physicists Nikola Tesla and Oliver Lodge and electrical engineer Guglielmo Marconi--demonstrated in the early 1890s that a sound can be seated aboard an electromagnetic wave with a specific frequency (a specific number of cycles per second, or Hertz) and transmitted across distances at the speed of light. The first gadgetry transmitted noises and tones; combinations of tones could accomplish communication with the use of Morse code, for example. More sophisticated apparatus proved capable of transmitting speech and music aboard such waves. Scientists and electrical engineers then developed equipment that could transmit visual images. Just fifteen years after commercial radio broadcasting began in 1920, the first higher-definition television stations began to broadcast, and, within four more years, the NBC television network was "on the air."

Obviously, the development of radio and television broadcasting restructured American life. Information and entertainment would now be available at the turn of a dial in one's own home or motor vehicle. Assembling at a school, church, movie theater, or concert hall to hear music, see a variety show, or watch a motion picture remained a pleasant social event, but it was no longer essential to hear a musical performance or see a play in person.

The public's fascination with this revolutionary technology elevated playing with radio transmission and reception to the status of a hobby to which were attributed any number of significant values. The hobbyists who were engaged in "amateur radio," and who were generally referred to for uncertain reasons as "hams," were thought to be encouraging the development of young people's knowledge of science and technology with the potential of qualifying them for employment in the technological growth industries, preparing young people for service in the U.S. military as radio operators, and constituting a legion of people who could serve a vital purpose during natural disasters or acts of aggression by a foreign power that would silence customary communication systems. As Hating describes, these essential...