Hams Across the Iron

During the war, FCC took over a 160-meter amateur band for the use of loran, the aerial navigational device (TIME, March 18, 1946). This week there was good news for some 80,000 U.S. hams (amateur radio operators): FCC was giving part of the band back. Hereafter, U.S. hams,* whose ranks increase by 200 every month, will have a little more elbow room for their incessant chattering with the men & women of every continent.

Every week, U.S. hams casually talk to hams behind the Iron Curtain. Usually the topics discussed are politically innocuous: the weather, detailed descriptions of radio equipment, sometimes the moves in a chess or checker game. Even in presidential years, hams avoid politics. Their mutual passion for radio appears to level most cultural, racial, political and religious differences.

Hams who talk to each other this week will soon confirm their chats by an exchange of postcards called QSLs. To cut down on postal expenses, hams have formed central bureaus in several countries. The bureaus distribute incoming cards and mail outgoing ones in bulk.

Over two-thirds of the world's hams are concentrated in the U.S., but the greatest percentage increase has been in the U.S.S.R. Much of the Russian equipment comes from U.S. war surplus stocks; many Russian hams speak excellent English--which is rapidly becoming the international ham language.

Soviet QSL postcards, often printed in English, are government-made and attractively illustrated with monuments, public buildings, various war medals, and propagandistic puffs for Russian greats. A popular model carries a likeness of Alexander Popov (1859-1905), hailed by the Russians as the "inventor of radio."

Many Red hams add chatty notes to their cards. One QSL card arrived from Rumania bearing the casual, newsy footnote that a neighboring ham--his call letters were given--"has just been arrested."

Soviet encouragement of ham activity seems odd, but the Red bosses have undoubtedly discovered (as did the U.S. during the war) that hams are a ready-made pool of communications experts whose services are invaluable in war.

*Said to be derived from the cockney pronunciation of amateur: "h'amateur."

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