Simon Willison’s Weblog

The rich history of ham radio culture (via) This long excerpt from Kristen Haring's 2008 book Ham Radio's Technical Culture filled in so many gaps for me. I'm ham licensed in the USA (see my recent notes on passing the general exam) but prior to reading this I hadn't appreciated quite how much the 100+ year history of the hobby explains the way it works today. Some ham abbreviations derive from the Phillips Code created in 1879!

The Hacker News thread attracted some delightful personal stories from older ham operators: "my exposure to ham radio really started in the 1970s...". I also liked this description of the core of the hobby:

A ham radio license is permission from your country's government to get on the air for the sake of playing with radio waves and communicating with other hams locally or around the globe without any further agenda.

I'm increasingly using the Listen to Page feature in my iPhone's Mobile Safari to read long-form articles like this one, which means I can do household chores at the same time.