ham radio?

From: Geoff Roberts <geoffrob_at_stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au>
Date: Sun Feb 20 03:33:32 2000

----- Original Message -----
From: Corda Albert J DLVA <CordaAJ_at_nswc.navy.mil>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2000 7:31 AM
Subject: RE: ham radio?


> Wouff-Hong (sp?) Boy, that's an obscure reference. When I was
> in high-school, (back in the 70's) I picked up a couple of big
> boxes of QST magazines at a ham auction. Most of 'em were from
> the 1940's and 50's, but they were _very_ interesting reading,
> especially if you were into tinkering with old world-war II
> receivers (like the ARC-5 series...) I ran across a number of
> articles that mentioned the Wouff-Hong. From what I can remember,
> it was a wierdly-shaped piece of wood with a couple of rusty bits
> of metal hanging from it (probably was a fragment of an old cart
> hitch or something along those lines) From what I can remember,
> someone at ARRL headquarters found this item lying around somewhere
> in a storage area, and hung it on the wall just for grins. Nobody
> knew what it actually was, but it became kind of a joke to threaten
> to use it on someone as a punishment instrument if they did something
> against the ham ethic. I haven't heard a reference to it since
> high-school reading foray into the ham-past. (until now, that is

IIRC, the founder of the ARRL, one Hiram Percy Maxim, used the term
in his "Rotten Radio" series of articles in the 20's(?). Evidently the ham
bands in those
good(?) old days were something of a mess (bit like 27mhz now I guess)
with all kinds of wierd noises, interference etc etc. IIRC, the particular
reference was
in the context of a msg heard on air, with a suggestion that a particular
LID (Bad Operator) be hit with a (burst of noise that came out as Wouff
Hong)
and the reference became a standard threat to LID's of all kinds, but it was
purely an Americanism, and to my knowledge, did not get used by ops in
other countries. I first read about in the same source you did, QST.
In particular, it was an article that explained the origin of the term.
It was an issue from the late 50's or early 60's but couldn't tell you now
which one it was.....

I think this is right, it was some years ago that I read all this.....
The reference to the actual wood&iron article I think was mentioned
in this article as well, and sounds (as near as I can remember) like
the description there of the origin of the actual device..

Cheers

Geoff Roberts

VK5KDR
Received on Sun Feb 20 2000 - 03:33:32 GMT