News-Sun, Evening Star & Herald-Republican

News-Sun, Evening Star & Herald-Republican

"Musings From the Heartland
Amateur ham operators are alive and well
By REV. DAVE HOGSETT

When I was a student at the Purdue Extension in Hammond, one of the persons with whom I would frequently go out for lunch would occasionally refer to his interest in amateur radio. Asking him one day about his hobby, he invited me to his home in Whiting to see his equipment. On the appointed day, he took me to the attic of his house, where he had some radio equipment on a table and postcards on the wall that had on them call letters from other ham operators. While there are many suggestions, no one is sure how amateur radio operators came to be known as hams.

With the exception of running into similar cards while going through antique dealers postcard offerings, I have not thought too much about amateur radio since my college days. In fact, with the advent of the Internet, I had assumed that ham radio had become obsolete."

73 fer nw,
Bob N5IET/AE

10X# 37210, FP#-1141, SMIRK#-5177
http://www.n5iet.com/
Code may be taking a back seat for now,
but the pioneering spirit that put the code
there in the first place is out front of it all.