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 Previous: ARRL In Action: What Have We Been Up To Lately? |  Next: The K7RA Solar Update |
By David Sumner, K1ZZ
ARRL Chief Executive Officer
January 1, 2004
Editor's note: Typically, only ARRL members get to read the "It Seems to Us ..." editorials that run each month in QST. We're posting this editorial that appears in the January 2004 issue of QST in the hope that both ARRL members and nonmembers might appreciate it and find it informative.
This year we celebrate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the ARRL. Few other membership associations have survived for so long with their founders' vision still intact. That the ARRL has done so is testimony to the quality of that original vision as well as to the dedication of subsequent generations of members.
To say that we have remained true to the vision of our founders is not to say that nothing has changed in nine decades. Hiram Percy Maxim and Clarence Tuska would marvel at what radio amateurs have built upon the foundation they laid in 1914. The original impetus for the formation of a "radio relay league" was the difficulty that Mr. Maxim encountered in sending a message from Hartford to Springfield, a radio path we now traverse without a second thought. From those beginnings, amateurs have gone on to conquer countless obstacles and continue to do so with a regularity that would gratify "The Old Man."
Every one of those nine decades has seen its share of challenges and accomplishments.
The world went to war when the fledgling organization was just a few months old. In 1917 the United States entered the fray, amateurs were silenced (and enlisted in droves), and the ARRL suspended operations until early 1919. At that time QST, until then a private venture of Mr. Tuska's, was purchased using bonds sold to ARRL members who had no guarantee of ever being allowed back on the air. The rise of broadcast listening in the early 1920s led to interference problems that to some spelled "the end of Amateur Radio as we know it." The League celebrated its 10th anniversary with the discovery that if they picked the right "wavelength," amateurs could communicate worldwide.
The second decade, 1924-34, was surely a Golden Age for Amateur Radio. Using vacuum tubes "borrowed" from the family broadcast receiver, amateurs could and did build globe-girdling transmitters that brought the achievement of "Worked All Continents" within anyone's grasp. But the amateurs' discovery of the "short waves" came at a price. While Amateur Radio enjoyed the support of the U.S. government, commercial and government interests elsewhere pressed for dramatic reductions in our bands. New Year's Day 1929 saw the narrowing of the 160, 40 and 20 meter bands, forcing the ARRL to emphasize stability and selectivity in equipment designs.
Our third decade began in the depths of the Depression and ended in the throes of World War II. Amateur stations again went silent, but amateurs themselves put their skills and knowl- edge into service to their country. Thanks to the value of their contribution, this time there was no doubt that amateurs would be allowed back on the air as soon as possible after the war was won.
The ARRL remained in operation throughout World War II and provided important support to the war effort. Key QST advertisers such as Al Kahn, K4FW, then of Electro-Voice and still active today at age 97, helped keep the magazine in circulation and the organization afloat. Thanks, Al! The postwar flood of surplus equipment fueled a boom in operating activity, including VHF and microwave experimentation based on wartime advances in technology. A license restructuring controversy gave birth to the Novice and Technician licenses in 1951, at a time when television interference (TVI) was becoming the latest "end of Amateur Radio as we know it."
Decade #5, 1954-64, saw amateurs claim their rightful place in the Space Age with the first moonbounce contact in 1960 and launch of the first OSCAR in 1961. Amateur Radio boomed thanks to the Novice license, and VHF became popular thanks to the Technician license. Crowding in the HF phone bands accelerated the shift from AM to SSB. The ARRL's 50th anniversary was a gala affair, with a National Convention featuring a Presidential candidate (Senator Barry Goldwater, K7UGA) and a postage stamp honoring Amateur Radio.
Another license restructuring controversy came to a head in 1967 with the FCC's resumption of "incentive licensing" to encourage amateurs to upgrade their skills. Around the same time, ARRL instituted Life Membership and introduced Five Band DXCC to encourage amateurs to explore the DX potential of the 80 and 40 meter bands. AMSAT-OSCAR 6 ushered in the era of "permanent" amateur satellites in 1972, ultimately lasting 41/2 years. VHF operation shifted from AM to FM on a massive scale, with repeaters popping up like mushrooms and autopatches presaging cellular telephones.
In 1974, ARRL began a concerted worldwide effort to protect and expand amateur frequency allocations at an upcoming World Administrative Radio Conference. New bands at 10, 18 and 24 MHz and new amateur-satellite bands were among our WARC-79 achievements. Owen Garriott, W5LFL, became the first amateur to operate from space in 1983. Decade #7 ended with amateurs administering FCC examinations and embracing digital radio technology via packet radio and AMTOR.
Decades #8 and #9 are too recent to be considered history (and besides, we're running out of room) but it's worth noting that the FCC made a codeless amateur license available in 1991 and dropped the code speed for an HF license to 5 words per minute in 2000. It also bears mention that during this time ARRL members embraced the Internet and the World Wide Web not as a replacement for radio, but as tools to expand its use and enjoyment.
What does the last decade before ARRL's Centennial Year,
2014, hold in store? Will Broadband Over Power Lines be "the end of Amateur
Radio as we know it" or a bit of forgotten technological trivia? Will digital
voice revolutionize the ham bands the way SSB reshaped HF in the '60s and the
way FM reshaped VHF in the '70s? Will software defined radios give us powerful
new tools to "farm" the radio spectrum? The answers to these and countless
other questions will be found right here-- in the pages of future issues of QST!
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