This is a tour of amateur radio history, beginning around the turn of the last century. It unfolds blog-style in periodic installments or chapters.

Guide to Readers

If you’re new to this site, you’ve started in the right place.  The Contents page where you first came in will take you through the history in chronological order—a good place to look first when you return. After this Introduction, the best post to read next is the Prologue, which describes the purpose and background of the site. At the top of each page are links, at left and right, that take you to the next and previous installments in the sequence. (Since this Introduction is the first one, this page only has one such link at the upper right pointing to the Prologue.)

These are only suggestions—you are welcome to jump in at any point. But reading in random order might get confusing since some postings refer back to events described in earlier ones.

The Chapters page lists the same installments but stacked in the order in which they were posted, most recent first (which is nearly always historically reverse chronological order). This listing also displays brief beginning excerpts from each chapter so you can see a bit of what it’s about or find your way back to something you read before.

Once you have read all the current postings, you can check back periodically and easily notice when a new chapter has been posted by looking to the right under “Recent Posts” to see if anything new has been added to the top of the list—or simply subscribe to the site (see below under “Subscriptions”).

The search box at upper right is useful for finding snippets of text anywhere on the site. If you can’t remember where you read something but do remember a few words or a phrase, this is the place to go. It can also be useful for finding material about a certain topic.

Mobile Devices

When you use a small mobile device, such as a smart phone, the site re-formats the pages to make reading and navigating easier on smaller screens. You’ll notice a difference in how the menus operate, and the text should be more readable than if you were looking at the full format.  Also, a button labeled “Reader” appears in the address area at the top.  When you tap it, the display changes to look more like an e-reader, uncluttered by Web site controls, displaying only the main text with a larger font that is adjustable in size. If you want, however, you can switch to the full format and back again using the icons at the top or bottom of each page. (The “Reader” mode works whether or not you’re viewing the site using a mobile device.)

References

The posted chapters are extensively referenced to original published materials. These references appear as clickable footnotes like this one¹ in the text. When you click on a footnote number in the text, you’ll be taken to the corresponding footnote at the bottom of the posting. For some of these the original source QST article can be found in the ARRL on-line archives (you must be a member and logged in to the ARRL Web site to access the archives).

Each footnote ends with a back-link that looks like this: ↩. Clicking the back-link returns you to where you left off reading.

Problems, Questions, and other Correspondence

Please email me (w2pa at arrl.net) with any questions about the site or comments you otherwise wouldn’t post to a specific page.

Acknowledgements

With gratitude, I recognize several ham radio friends who contribute time and effort to this Web site.

I hope you enjoy the tour.

73,
Chris, W2PA