A government-licensed, noncommercial radio service found throughout the world.
Amateur radio is not citizens band (CB), an unlicensed and (in the United States) rather
undisciplined radio service some countries permit for short-distance communication. An
international transmission medium for folklore found in society at large, amateur radio
also possesses its own body of lore and custom.
Radio amateurs, known as “hams,” transmit folklore by two principal means. One,
obviously, is over the radio, using frequencies assigned to the amateur-radio service. The
other is via the radio-club newsletter.
Some of the radio frequencies available to amateurs support worldwide
communications. It is possible for a joke originated in San Francisco to be known in Tel
Aviv in a matter of hours. Although much folklore transmitted via amateur radio passes
in real-time personal conversations, much is also circulated using computer-based
bulletin board stations where items are posted for many other hams to read. These
stations automatically relay messages over the air to one another internationally, posting
those designated as public on each intermediary station. Although most of the material
thus circulated is humorous, urban legends have also appeared.
Radio-club newsletters often use traditionai filler items, depending for their humor on
the reader’s technical knowledge. Newsletter editors exchange copies of their papers and
reprint these items as needed. For example, “a reward of 500 micro-Farads is offered for
information leading to the arrest and conviction of Hopalong Capacity. He is charged
with the induction of an 18-turn coil, Milli Henry, who was found choked and robbed of
her Joules. He was last seen riding a kilocycle.…” Another example states that “for years
it has been believed that electric bulbs emitted light. However, recent information has
proven otherwise. Electric bulbs don’t emit light, they suck dark.” The complete items
develop their mock-serious subjects with puns and examples.
Club newsletters also reprint urban legendary material such as “Litde Buddy,” the
story of a terminally ill child who wanted to amass the world’s largest postcard
collection. Hams were encouraged to send him postcards showing their amateur radio
station call signs; these colorful “QSL cards” are normally exchanged by hams who have
had a conversation on the air. In the early 1980s, newsletters circulated a cautionary tale
claiming that contact lenses could be cooked onto one’s eyeballs during the use of heatproducing workbench tools. Several legends, all quite unverifiable and unreliable,
circulate through newsletters concerning the origin of the nickname “ham” for amateur
radio. Amateur radio also has its own body of lore and custom, including a traditional
vocabulary heavily indebted to early telegraphers’ jargon. Not found in any government’s
rules or any electronics textbook, this terminology underscores the importance of custom
in a future-oriented, technological hobby.
For example, a “lid” is someone who ignoranly or wilfully violates rules and customs,
a poor operator. Conversations are commonly ended with “73,” signifying “best regards.”
Under appropriate circumstances, “88,” meaning “love and kisses,” may be used in place
of, or in addition to, “73.” An “Elmer” is someone who mentors a newcomer in how to
become licensed and how not to become a lid. “Band cops” are self-appointed guardians
who rudely correct others’ operating errors, real and imagined. “Homebrew” radio
equipment is built by hams themselves from electronic components; the equivalent term
in model railroading is “scratch-built,” along the lines of baking a cake “from scratch”
using basic ingredients rather than a cake mix. A “hamfest” is a combination trade show
and flea market at which hams sell or trade components, new equipment, and used gear.
Hamfests are like village market days, in which social interaction is at least as important
as economic activity.
Radio amateurs take pride in having to pass licensing examinations and in rules that
keep ham radio free of commercial activity and foul language. Esprit de corps is carefully
maintained through indoctrination of new licensees in customs and values, over and
above the government’s formal rules.
Considerable effort is expended, for example, to teach newcomers never to use CB
slang, such as “ten codes” (“Tenfour, good buddy”). Inevitably, some language from CB
has crept into common usage. For example, it is now generally acceptable to refer to
one’s given name as a “handle,” but one should still never call it a “personal.” Club
newsletters frequently editorialize against both the use of CB slang and the incorrect use
of ham slang. There is, in other words, a conscious emphasis on purity of folk speech.
Mastering the technical material and formal rules is only the first step toward
becoming a radio amateur. A person must also learn customs and folk speech to be
accepted as an insider.
Kay Cothran Craigie
References
Dunnehoo, Donna M. 1991. Amateur Radio QSL Cards: Their Design and Exchange. North
Carolina Folklore Journal 38:21–44.
Ford, Steve, ed. 1991a. The ARRL Operating Manual Newington, CT: American Radio Relay
League.
——. 1991b. Your VHF Companion. Newington, CT: American Radio Relay League.
Wolfgang, Larry D., Jim Kearman, and Joel P.Kleinman, eds. 1993. Now You’re Talking.
Newington, CT: American Radio Relay League.