This promotional film (now an online video)
entitled "This Is Ham Radio" was produced by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) circa 1970. It shows the many aspects of
amateur radio including building and operating transmitters and receivers, erecting
antennas, and engaging in contests - in both fixed and mobile venues. At that time,
entrance into the world of Ham radio was tougher than it is nowadays because proficiency
at Morse code was required - a minimum of five words per minute sending and receiving.
The entire pool of questions and answers was not readily available for studying
for the written exam either, like it is today.
"This Is Ham Radio" promotional video produced
by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) c1970
For those who like to accuse organizations of ignoring and/or discouraging the
participation of anyone other than White males, please note care was taken to include
Blacks, Latinos, Asians, women and girls, youngsters and seniors. That was more
than half a century ago. In fact, some of this footage is borrowed from an earlier
ARRL film made in the
1960s and narrated by
Senator Barry
Goldwater (K7UGA), demonstrating an even longer-ago inclusionary effort. Since
that time, many more resources have been invested (both time and money on the part
of ARRL members) to promote the hobby to everyone regardless of who he or she is.
As with multitudes of other areas of sport, hobby, and profession, the lack of "equal"
representation of participants is not due to lack of trying. Maybe... just maybe...
not everyone is the same after all, and we each have unique likes and dislikes,
abilities and inabilities. Imagine that.
RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling
2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed
formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit
design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at
the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps
while tying up your telephone line, and a nice lady's voice announced "You've Got
Mail" when a new message arrived...
Copyright 1996 - 2026
All trademarks, copyrights, patents, and other rights of ownership to images
and text used on the RF Cafe website are hereby acknowledged.
All trademarks, copyrights, patents, and other rights of ownership to images
and text used on the RF Cafe website are hereby acknowledged.