While watching a recently aired program on PBS that was discussing the nature of business and capitalism in our country one particularly fascinating point came to the fore. This point was that it is rare in the extreme that bright and talented individuals of modest background are the focal point of free market capitalism. The program discussed this and gave credible evidence as to why this was the case.

I was intrigued because I know the history of some of the example entrepreneurs this group of capitalists sighted. They did give examples of some more recent persons such as Bill Gates or Steve Jobs but, the mainstay point of their discussion was that the current trend of business in our culture discourages the talented individual from being able to get his idea, product, or invention capitalized.

The basic notion of this also struck me in that I had just recently finished reading the book, "Three Degrees Above Zero" written by Jeremy Berstein. Mr. Bersteins book outlines the demise of AT&T Bell Labs, following divestiture of the company in the early 1980's. His book tells of the spirit and character that was held by the "employees" of this research laboratory and how that institution came to be built. They didn't think of themselves as "employee's", they really loved what they were doing! It also mentioned by the way that folks like Arno Penzias, the originator of the "Big Bang Theory" were Ham Radio operators. In fact, most folks who worked at Bell Labs were Hams!

What also struck is the comment by Addison White one of the developers of the transistor, and a later director of Bell Labs. He said, "I have always been utterly skeptical that any school of business administration can teach people how to manage". "When it comes to research all one can do is recruit very able people in relevant fields, and TURN THEM LOOSE"! I think that Ham Radio is the cultural key or common denominator to a high tech renaissance. At least it would be if cultural values were not being skewed!

Ham Radio in decades past was that furtile ground where these bright and inventive people had the space to roam, and they essentially "turned themselves loose" to roam it and explore. If you have seen the motion picture "Contact" staring Jodie Foster, you will have a very good idea of the greater point I am making! In earlier decades Hams were ALWAYs doing "interesting stuff"! I am personally privileged to know a few of them and count them as friends.

I know a Ham who in the late 1940's was experimenting with color television transmission on the 70 Centimeter band. At this point in time most folks in the lay public did not yet own a television set, and if they did, it was black and white. The broadcasters were just experimenting with "the idea" of color broadcasting. This guy was transmitting multi scan line high resolution color pictures! I know another Ham who recently was the first to send a color TV image to the Space Shuttle science and Ham Radio onboard project. He modified and re-designed his "home-brew" Kilowatt 70 Centimeter linear power amplifier to accomplish this. I even know a Ham who has only been licensed a few years, yet often tricks my thinking and evaluation of him, to make me think he has been licensed much longer. He does this because of the way he thinks, and the actions he takes pursuant to his endeavors in Ham Radio!

Ham Radio is the most wonderful pastime and avocation I can recommend to anyone! It has been the mainstay of my life for 3/4's of my nearly 50 years of age. It has helped me to work in an industry I love, and it has taught me great values of communication over and above that which is conveyed by "carrier wave"! It is an avocation that can provide this sort of pastime and education to anyone! My favorite avocation has in recent years become threatened with extinction both from without and within.

Industry and venture capitalist investors want our radio spectrum for their fast buck low yield inventions. Many new Hams simply don't understand the traditions, values, and history of Ham Radio, and its foundation and origin. I fear that many who work for the organization that now best represents Ham Radio, don't understand, or well enough appreciate, this history either!

Ham Radio deserves the best effort each licensed Ham can muster and put back into what they have available to take and use from this great votary avocation of ours! Please, if you are a new Ham, or even a longer licensed one, don't turn Ham Radio into another version or variation of the Citizens Band! This should not be a great effort. Just have fun doing some basic scientific "stuff"! You never know, you might turn out to be the next Arno Penzias!

Suggestions on outside reading that will support and broaden the cogency of this article:

"Three Degrees Above Zero" by Jeremy Berstein
This book, while being primarily a basic discourse to merely preserve the history of a great institution, turns out to be one of the most thrilling and thought provoking stories a technically oriented person can read! I hope that many teenage future scientists and radio engineers, and their parents, will read this article and take the hint! They might next want to read Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead"!

"Man Of High Fidelity" by Lawrence Lessing
This is the story of Edwin Howard Armstrong, the inventor of Frequency Modulation, the SuperHeterodyn receiver, and the Regenerative and SuperRegenerative radio detectors. He too is quite an Ayn Randian character.

"The Evolution of Radio Astronomy" by J.S. Hey
Read about the Ham and earliest Radio Astronomer Grote Reber. He taught Arno Penzias what to do! This guy along with John Galt and Howard Roarke would all have been best friends!

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