Tag Archives: Herbert Hoover

Ramifications: Regional Fine Tuning and Phone

Posted on by June 2, 2021
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In addition to the many issues raised during the arduous process that led to the new radio law, amateurs worried about concentrating too much power with the secretary of commerce. Even though Secretary Hoover had been a strong advocate of amateur radio, he would eventually leave the job, and what would the next secretary do? No one anticipated that Hoover’s next job would be to replace his boss. Herbert Hoover was inaugurated as the thirty-first President of the United States … Continue reading →

Wireless in Washington

Posted on by June 2, 2021
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The fourth National Radio Conference convened on 9 November 1925, with seven hundred delegates from all sectors of the radio community present. Although attendance was larger than at any previous conference, it concluded its work in only three days, the shortest of any.1 As before, Maxim, Stewart, and Warner represented ARRL and the US amateurs. Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover once again presided over the conference and set the tone. In his opening remarks he said that amateur radio “has found … Continue reading →

Six Segments, Sans Spark

Posted on by June 2, 2021
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For nearly a year, hams had been operating in their first assigned band of wavelengths, 150 to 200 meters. They had also been experimenting below 150 meters by special government permission, dramatically demonstrating the effectiveness of the shortwaves with the first transatlantic two-way contacts, and marking the birth of international amateur radio. But why, they wondered, had the government designated the spectrum below 150 meters as “reserved?” Clearly that was a temporary state of affairs. What would come next for … Continue reading →

First Band, Top Band

Posted on by June 2, 2021
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On 20 March 1923 Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover convened his second national radio conference and, as before, the ARRL was there in force. A May QST photo shows Maxim at center flanked by C. F. Jenkins, identified as “inventor of radio transmission of photographs,” and Major General G. O. Squier, US Army, Chief Signal Officer. Paul Godley of transatlantics fame and ARRL Secretary Kenneth Warner can be seen in the background. Besides Maxim and crew, other prominent participants from … Continue reading →

Twenty-two in ’22

Posted on by June 2, 2021
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Driven by rapidly expanding and radically changing uses of radio, a fitful and frustrating process of legislative and regulatory proposals and counterproposals was just beginning and would continue for a decade or more before it would begin to stabilize. As spring arrived in 1922, new broadcasting stations packed the air with signals as growing crowds of listeners in the general public clamored for even more. Ten years had brought changes unimaginable in 1912 when the first radio law was enacted.  … Continue reading →

Broadcast Boundaries

Posted on by June 2, 2021
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Despite several attempts, no successor to the outdated 1912 radio law had yet emerged. Now it could wait no longer since things had changed so radically with the rise of broadcasting—“well over a half-million receiving stations in the country, some sixty broadcasting stations, and rumor has it that there are some five hundred applications for broadcasting pending in the department of Commerce,” wrote Warner.1 Companies were trying to control access to the airwaves too; AT&T, for example, was formally requesting … Continue reading →