Ham Radio's Technical Culture

50701Haring 10/31/06 10:55 AM Page 1 Ham Radio’s Technical Culture Kristen Haring history of technology Decades before the Internet, ham radio provided instantaneous, global, person-to-person communication. Hundreds “Although approximately one million Americans operated ham radios in the course of the twentieth of thousands of amateur radio operators—a predominantly century, very little has been written about this thriving technical culture in our midst. Kristen Haring male, middle- and upper-class group known as “hams”— H offers a deeply sympathetic history of this under-appreciated technical community and their role in built and operated two-way radios for recreation in mid contributing to American advances in science and technology, especially the electronics industry. In a twentieth century America. In Ham Radio’s Technical the process she reveals how technical tinkering has defined manhood in the United States and has m Ham Radio’s Culture, Kristen Haring examines why so many men adopt- powerfully constituted ‘technical identities’ with often utopian, even, at times, revolutionary, notions ed the technical hobby of ham radio from the 1930s about the social uses of technology.” R through 1970s and how the pastime helped them form —Susan Douglas, Catherine Neafie Kellogg Professor of Communication Studies, University of identity and community. Michigan, and author of Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination a Ham radio required solitary tinkering with sophisticated d electronics equipment, often isolated from domestic activi- i Technical Culture “Haring’s book is a nuanced and elegantly written cultural history that throws new light on the com- o ties in a “radio shack,” yet the hobby thrived on fraternal plex relations among masculinity, domesticity, emotional connection to technology, and American ’ s interaction. Conversations on the air grew into friendships, technical culture.” and hams gathered in clubs or met informally for “eyeball —Donald MacKenzie, School of Social and Political Studies, University of Edinburgh T contacts.” Within this community, hobbyists developed dis- e tinct values and practices with regard to radio, creating a “Kristen Haring has constructed an engaging account of ham radio culture in mid-twentieth-century c h particular “technical culture.” Outsiders viewed amateur America. In so doing, she illuminates how people assign meaning to—and identify with—technologies n radio operators with a mixture of awe and suspicion, of all kinds, thus her book will be of value to all students of technological culture.” i impressed by hams’ mastery of powerful technology but —Emily Thompson, Professor of History, Princeton University c uneasy about their contact with foreigners, especially dur- a Photograph by Tim Soter ing periods of political tension. l C Drawing on a wealth of personal accounts found in radio Kristen Haring is a visiting scholar in Columbia University’s magazines and newsletters and from technical manuals, Department of History. She holds degrees in mathematics u trade journals, and government documents, Haring from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of l t describes how ham radio culture rippled through hobby- North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a PhD in history of sci- u ists’ lives. She explains why hi-tech employers recruited ence from Harvard University. Haring’s work has been rec- r hams and why electronics manufacturers catered to these ognized by the Society for the History of Technology, e specialty customers. She discusses hams’ position within which awarded her the IEEE Life Members’ Prize in the military and civil defense during World War II and the Electrical History for portions of Ham Radio’s Technical Cold War as well as the effect of the hobby on family Culture. She has served on the board of directors of the dynamics. By considering ham radio in the context of other Keith Haring Foundation since its creation by her brother technical hobbies—model building, photography, high- H in 1989. fidelity audio, and similar leisure pursuits—Haring high- The MIT Press a lights the shared experiences of technical hobbyists. She r Massachusetts Institute of Technology i shows that tinkerers influenced attitudes toward technology n Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 beyond hobby communities, enriching the general techni- g http://mitpress.mit.edu cal culture by posing a vital counterpoint. 0-262-08355-8 978-0-262-08355-3 Inside Technology series Cover illustrations from Amateur Radio Defense, November 1940, and Kristen Haring Cleveland Institute of Electronics advertisement, CQ, October 1967; reprinted with permission. Ham Radio’s Technical Culture Inside Technology edited by Wiebe E. Bijker, W. Bernard Carlson, and Trevor Pinch A list of books in the series appears at the back of the book. Ham Radio’s Technical Culture Kristen Haring The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England ( 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. Every effort has been made to contact those who hold rights for all materials reproduced here. Any rights holders not credited should contact the publisher so a correc- tion can be made in the next printing. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected]. This book was set in Stone Serif and Stone Sans on 3B2 by Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong, and was printed on recycled paper and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Haring, Kristen. Ham radio’s technical culture / Kristen Haring. p. cm.—(Inside technology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-262-08355-3 (alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-262-08355-8 (alk. paper) 1. Amateur radio stations—History. 2. Radio operators—United States—History. 3. Hobbies—Social aspects. I. Title. TK9956.H3626 2007 384.540973'0904—dc22 2006046597 10987654321 for my brother, Keith, with abiding love and respect Contents Prologue ix 1 Identifying with Technology, Tinkering with Technical Culture 1 2 The Culture of Ham Radio 19 3 Equipping Productive Consumers 49 4 Amateurs on the Job 75 5 Hobby Radio Embattled 95 6 Ham Radio at Home 119 7 Technical Change and Technical Culture 147 Acknowledgments 163 Notes 165 References 195 Index 215 Series List 219 Prologue Every night thousands of men retreat to radio stations elaborately outfitted in suburban basements or tucked into closets of city apartments to talk to local friends or to strangers on the other side of the world. They commu- nicate by speaking into a microphone, tapping out Morse code on a tele- graph key, or typing at the keyboard of a teletypewriter. In the Internet age, instantaneous, long-distance, person-to-person communication seems ordinary. But amateur radio operators have been completing such contacts since the 1910s. The hobbyists often called ‘‘hams’’ initially turned to radio for technical challenges and thrills. As the original form of wireless technology became more reliable and commonplace in the 1930s, ham radio continued as a leisure activity. This book examines why men in mid twentieth century America operated two-way radios for recreation and how the hobby shaped social and technical encounters. It primarily concerns the period after radio broadcasting became routine and before personal computing did. The hobby is still widely practiced, with more than 680,000 hams in the United States in 2000—more than ever before. While there may be many points of continuity between past and present ham radio, what follows is a historical analysis based on evidence from the 1930s to 1970s and aiming only to in- terpret events of that era. To become an amateur radio operator required considerable skill, ma- chinery, and time. The first hurdle was obtaining a license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by passing a written examination of electronics theory and radio regulations and a hands-on test translating words into and out of Morse code. Once he earned an FCC-assigned call Prologue sign, the hobbyist next had to either buy or build the equipment for his home station. A two-way radio station needed a transmitter, to generate and send out signals, and a receiver tunable over the particular frequency range the FCC reserved for amateurs. Successful communication depended on additional gear—from an antenna and headphones to diagnostic equipment and tools such as a voltmeter, oscilloscope, and soldering iron. This stockpile of devices demarcated the hobby space or ‘‘shack,’’ which took its name from the ‘‘radio shacks’’ that housed communication equipment on board ships and for military field operations.1 Though shacks often were relegated to the basement, attic, garage, or other unrefined parts of a home, hams prized these territories set apart from domestic activities, com- pletely devoted to radio. Postcards confirming individual contacts usually decorated the walls, along with any awards and the hobbyist’s FCC license. A large desk provided comfortable operating conditions, and shelves of manuals and magazines served as a technical reference library. For con- struction and repair projects, ideally a shack also contained a workbench. Assorted spare parts might be strewn about or stored neatly in bins, de- pending on the hobbyist (see figure P.1). In periods of tinkering with equipment that could stretch on for months, the ham resembled the ster- eotypical lone inventor. Then a flip of a switch and a spin of a dial brought the many voices of hobby radio rushing into the shack. Dialing through the band of frequencies set aside for amateur radio unleashed a cacophony. Layers of voices, in different languages, competed with the staccato tones of Morse code, whose rhythm and strength varied according to the style of the human sender and the power of his transmitter.

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