When I upgraded my license to technician in the late 1980s, I was at a Ham radio festival and recieved a t-shirt with a huge pig in front of a Ham radio station. Although I was proud to be a Ham, I wanted to know why the amateur radio community had received such a unique name. I asked around, but no one seemed to know and didn't seem to care.

So after a little research, I found that the reason Amateur radio operators are called "hams" is lost to history. The Great Falls Area Amateur Radio Club has written an interesting essay speculating on the theories of "why radio operators are called hams" at this link http://www.w7eca.org/whyham.htm. They have several theories, but for this essay, I will discuss the two most famous theories.

When the amateur radio operator community discusses the nickname Ham, there are only two theories that they can agree to believe. However these theories have not been fully proven.

THEORY ONE

In G.M. Dodge's The Telegraph Instructor, the definition for Ham was "a poor operator. A plug." These plugs were the first wireless operators on ships. Prior to being operators on ships, they had been landline telegraphers. You have probably seen the poles, the wires, and the poor operator sending traffic or reading the spaces between the clicks. In those days it was a specialized skill.

In that time frame, spark was king and every transmitter transmitted on the same wavelength. Now days we have different bands, frequencies, and wavelengths. Back then the transmitters transmitted on the entire band.

It made it hard for the ships, government stations, and costal stations to communicate because two amateurs could effectively jam a station by just talking to each other. When it happened the frustrated commercial operators would call the ship saying "SRI OM THOSE #&A!@ HAMS ARE JAMMING YOU." Thus the Amateurs proudly claimed the name of Ham.

THEORY TWO

Supposedly in 1910, a powerful amateur radio station emitted 2KW and jammed all operators in his vicinity, which was about 500 miles. (Jam: putting a signal on the bandwidth so that other stations cannot hear another station. It is usually a clear tone, but can be music or noise.) The callsign of this station was HAM. Unfortunately there are very few records about stations in this time period (1910), so it is hard to prove or disprove this theory.

Even though there is no confirmation on how the name came about, Hams wear the name proudly.

USEFUL LINKS

AARL Web: Why It's Called HAM www.arrl.org/whyham.html

The History of Amateur Radio www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/qsl-ham-history4.htm

Why Amateur Radio Operators are Called Hams http://www.w7eca.org/whyham.htm

Learn more about this author, Cyn Bagley - Memoirs Steward.
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