Hams would have to take their chances to a degree, but some crucial modifications would have to be made before the League could endorse it. Of greatest concern was the \u201cdiscretionary power\u201d the proposed law would grant to the secretary of commerce. Regulatory decisions made under such a law could not be reviewed or challenged in the courts, and therefore would make the secretary the \u201cabsolute dictator and czar of radio,\u201d as ARRL secretary Kenneth Warner described it.<\/p>\n
Amateurs were not alone in calling for a change during the congressional committee\u2019s hearings\u2014the other radio interests shared the same concern. One suggested remedy was simply to remove the language that referred to the secretary\u2019s discretion\u2014expressions such as \u201cas he may deem necessary.\u201d Another suggestion, foreshadowing what eventually happened, was to place the authority in the hands of a \u201cRadio Commission\u201d rather than a single person. RCA and AT&T favored the bill as it was, but Westinghouse, along with most independent broadcasters, opposed it.<\/p>\n
One month later, an amended Senate bill emerged to be considered by Congress in its fall session. The new wording limited the discretionary powers of the secretary, provided for challenges to rulings, and\u2014most importantly\u2014explicitly named amateur radio in several places. The League\u2019s concerns had been largely satisfied.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere in the Senate, the Committee on Finance, perhaps wanting to be involved in the radio boom too, was considering a ten-percent tax on all radio equipment and parts, that would affect all services including amateur radio.3<\/a><\/sup> But it was proposed based on the misconception that a single manufacturer, RCA, was setting prices as a monopoly. After receiving protests from around the country and being schooled on the characteristics of the market, the proposal was thrown out.<\/p>\n The call for access to the shorter waves was soon answered. On 25 July 1924, the Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce, announced that amateurs would be granted access to five new bands of wavelengths at 75 to 80, 40 to 48, 20 to 22, and 4 to 5 meters4<\/a><\/sup>, added to the already existing band at 150 to 200 meters. In trade, all access to wavelengths above 200 meters was sacrificed to help enable broadcast expansion.5<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Although the League had hoped for access to the band from 105 to 110 meters (where the landmark recent transatlantic QSOs had taken place), only special license holders could apply to use it for now, and only for experiments with various classes of government and commercial stations, particularly the Naval Research Laboratory and the arctic expeditions. General access to the band would be revisited at the National Radio Conference to be held in Washington in September.<\/p>\n Besides notifying the press, Commissioner D. B. Carson sent a letter to the ARRL for distribution. Carson relied on QST<\/i> to get the word out, stating that it was not possible to notify each individual amateur because of \u201cthe work involved.\u201d Printed copies of the six paragraphs of new regulations were sent directly only to the government\u2019s radio supervisors.<\/p>\n CW alone would be allowed on the new bands\u2014no spark or phone. This included all forms of what was referred to as tube telegraphy,<\/i> including vacuum tube circuits with battery, generator, partly rectified, unfiltered, and even AC power applied to the plate (anode) electrodes. This rather relaxed regulation resulted from considering interference to broadcast stations. Most believed that key thumping<\/i>, the transient production of harmonics by sharp on-off keying of a CW transmitter (later called key clicks<\/i>) was the primary source of such interference. So even though using a pure DC supply resulted in a cleaner signal, special design was still required to eliminate thumping. The regulation also required that an antenna could not be directly coupled to a transmitter. Aside from increased efficiency, this would further limit interference from harmonics and power supply modulation.<\/p>\n In the 150 to 200 meter band the restrictions on transmission modes were relaxed to permit all types of amateur transmissions, including spark.<\/p>\n In what Warner called the \u201ccr\u00e8me-de-la-cr\u00e8me\u201d of the new regulations, no quiet hours would be required on the new bands because of what was assumed to be a much smaller chance of interference to broadcast listeners. Amateurs could once again transmit during the evening prime time.<\/p>\n Before amateurs could operate in the new bands, they had to return their licenses so that new ones permitting it could be issued. Access to some or all of the new allocations could be granted for each applicant on an individual basis. And all of this would be subject to change at the September conference. Amateurs were urged to get active on the new bands as soon as possible to build a case for continued access.<\/p>\n One month after the Commerce Department\u2019s announcement, Canada granted the same bands to their amateurs but with two significant differences: They must use only pure CW, and loose coupled transmitters would not be required.6<\/a><\/sup> They were tight on clean signals while being lax on harmonics.<\/p>\n Jewell wavemeter ad<\/p><\/div>\n To prepare amateurs to occupy the new bands, QST<\/i> Technical Editor Robert S. Kruse wrote about techniques and circuits to get them there.7<\/a><\/sup> He began by loudly assuring everyone that \u201cTHERE IS NOTHING STRANGE ABOUT THE 20 to 100 METER REGION.\u201d Wavelengths below 20 meters, however, required \u201cspecial stunts\u201d due to tube characteristics and so operation on the 4 to 5 meter band would be treated in a separate article. In any event, the first thing to do was to get a shortwave wavemeter. \u201cIt is absolute nonsense to start sending and receiving at 40 meters unless one knows where 40 meters is. Don’t do it. Just for once break all amateur traditions and make a wavemeter FIRST,\u201d he pleaded.<\/p>\n Recognizing a widespread lack of ability to measure wavelength, Kruse, also a Bureau of Standards engineer, had recently written a two-part article about wavemeters.8<\/a><\/sup> They were already available commercially from General Radio and the Jewell Electrical Instrument Company, and were also not very difficult to build. A homemade wavemeter simply consisted of a calibrated tuned circuit and an indicator such as a crystal detector and headphones, light bulb, or galvanometer. One must choose a variable capacitor and inductor that would result in enough space on an adjustment dial to sufficiently resolve individual signals. They must also be built from mechanically well engineered and constructed parts. A flimsy variable capacitor would easily lose calibration. The quality of the tuning components was far more important than the indicator.<\/p>\n The best standard for calibration was the Bureau of Standards station WWV since other stations\u2019 wavelengths were not particularly accurate. You could also set a wavemeter to another known calibrated wavemeter or send it to a lab for calibration. Calibration of a standard, commercially available numerical scale (tuning dial) could be done by plotting its settings on a graph.<\/p>\n Even with a calibrated wavemeter, using one to calibrate your equipment was a complicated process in 1924. When using the wavemeter with a transmitter, the coupling needed to be very loose or you\u2019d risk burning out the indicator if it was a bulb. To use a wavemeter with a receiver, you would first set the receiver\u2019s detector into oscillation. Next, with the wavemeter coil very close to the detector\u2019s secondary circuit, you\u2019d tune it until you heard a click in the receiver, indicating that the instrument was loading the receiver\u2019s detector circuit and stopping its oscillations. Then, you would continue to tune in the same direction until you heard a second click, indicating you\u2019d gone beyond the point where it again oscillated. Now you\u2019d back off the distance to the wavemeter in steps until the two points converged; that would be the measurement point. The click method would work when receiving a signal too.<\/p>\n Homebrew wavemeter circa 1924<\/p><\/div>\n Kruse warned, however, against calibrating your receiver\u2019s tuner since the markings will not have any meaning unless all the various settings were re-set exactly the same way each time, which, he matter-of-factly stated was impractical in most tuners and therefore \u201cit is \u2018the bunk\u2019 to calibrate a tuner\u2014keep a wavemeter handy instead.\u201d With a calibrated receiver dial still a distant dream, Kruse\u2019s advice was: don\u2019t even try it!<\/p>\n He then presented circuits for use in receiving shortwaves and variations on the Hartley and Colpitts oscillators for transmitting, designs that would be in use for decades to come. Since it was important to control stray capacitances and resistances, Kruse recommended that, \u201csockets and tube bases should be removed\u2014they have no business in a 20 meter set.\u201d Tubes should be wired in without sockets!<\/p>\n Two years earlier, Kruse and Mason, QST<\/i>\u2019s Department Editor, had announced the formation of the ARRL Radio Information Service. Its purpose was to answer questions, mostly of a technical nature, submitted by League members.9<\/a><\/sup> The service was needed, they wrote, because waiting for the next QST<\/i> took too long and \u201cthe average amateur does not want to wait long for his information. He would rather \u2018try it and see if anything blows up\u2019.\u201d The smoke test has a long tradition.<\/p>\n Example wavemeter circuit<\/p><\/div>\n Thus, the service endeavored to answer technical questions directly by exchanging letters with members, although the editors admitted that this \u201ctakes up most of the time of four people.\u201d They asked members to help them by sending in new information of all sorts as they found it; in this way the service could act as a central repository. To prime the readership, they presented a list of information actively being sought, including experiences with Beverage wires and counterpoises, antenna insulators, \u201ctransmission as affected by the moon and the barometer,\u201d tube comparisons, and information about \u201c\u2019dead spots\u2019 you know of,\u201d meaning skip zones.<\/p>\n The service\u2019s rules were simple: check your back issues of QST<\/i> before asking something that has already been covered there; supply a diagram and other full information so that a complete answer could be given; and since \u201call radio men write a terrible \u2018paw\u2019, use a typewriter.\u201d<\/p>\n With the accelerating pace of changes and the announcement of new bands, the frontier where no ham had gone before, the Information Service was beginning to feel overwhelmed. The League reiterated its rules10<\/a><\/sup> and added a final item: \u201cPlease remember, Rome was not built in a day.\u201d11<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n The National Radio Conference had gone on record favoring the elimination of spark radio and the Commerce Department was expected to follow suit.12<\/a><\/sup> The department would not recall licenses since the 1912 law, which was still in effect, allowed the possession of spark equipment and because it seemed unnecessary since fewer than one percent of ARRL members were still using spark. Warner did not believe that even a hundred of them were left.<\/p>\n The department asked for ARRL cooperation, prompting this response:<\/p>\n The A.R.R.L. here and now calls for the complete and immediate abolition of the amateur spark. Its day is done: let it begone. This is a civilized age and we have no place for decrement today. The editors of QST have owned and operated sparks that were their joy and pride, sparks as good as most of them, and nobody knows better than we the romance and fascination of the old rotary. But its name is Mud today and out it must go, 100%.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n With that announcement spark would shortly disappear from the air forever.<\/p>\n On 6 October 1924, eighty representatives from every radio service and region of the country gathered for five days to attend Secretary Hoover\u2019s third National Radio Conference.13<\/a><\/sup> The conference recommended allocations that were nearly the same as those announced by the department in July and had been in use ever since. Its conclusions were termed \u201cadvisory\u201d and would not become official until the Department of Commerce adopted them, which was expected to happen soon. As Warner wrote, \u201cAll the wavelengths from 0 to 3158 meters\u201d were allocated for one year, anticipating annual conferences for continual review.<\/p>\n![\"BT](\"http:\/\/w2pa.net\/HRH\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/BT-sep-sm.jpg\")
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