There
are many stories about where the name
"Ham" came from that commonly refers to
Amateur Radio Operator, but none of the ones I've
been told seems to check out with the exception of
the following information that I found.
"Ham: a poor
operator. A 'plug.'"
That's the definition of the word given in G. M.
Dodge's The Telegraph Instructor even
before radio. The definition has never changed in
wire telegraphy. The first wireless operators were
landline telegraphers who left their offices to go
to sea or to man the coastal stations. They
brought with them their language and much of the
tradition of their older profession.
In
those early days, spark was king and every station
occupied the same wavelength--or, more accurately
perhaps, every station occupied the whole spectrum
with its broad spark signal. Government stations,
ships, coastal stations and the increasingly
numerous amateur operators all competed for time
and signal supremacy in each other's receivers.
Many of the amateur stations were very powerful.
Two amateurs, working across town, could
effectively jam all the other operators in the
area. When this happened, frustrated commercial
operators would call the ship whose weaker signals
had been blotted out by the amateurs and say
"SRI OM THOSE #&$!* HAMS ARE JAMMING
YOU."
Amateurs,
possibly unfamiliar with the real meaning of the
term, picked it up and applied it to themselves in
true "Yankee Doodle" fashion and wore it
with pride. As the years advanced, the original
meaning has completely disappeared.
The meaning of the word
HAM according to The Original Roget's
Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases
(Americanized Version) is as follows:
ham (adjective)
-
Ignorant:
lay, amateurish,
nonprofessional, unqualified, inexpert, ham,
unskillful - unskilled:
nonprofessional, ham,
lay, amateurish, amateur, self-taught
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