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WIIHRI3VER you turn your dial— be it in the broadcast band, the amateurs, or the shortwave foreign group — you can tune in on a lawbreaker.
That's a mighty strong statement, and 1 wouldn't dare to make it unless I could back it up. Would you like to hear some of the evidence as to the rackets that flourish in radio, particularly those off the waves occupied by regular commercial stations?
An amateur according to Funk & Wagnalls' dictionary, is "One who practices an art, not professionally, but for the love of it". This is the thought which the Government has had in mind ever since radio amateurs have been licensed They know, when they apply for permits to construct their transmitters, that they are violating regulations if they send messages for pay.
And vet this practise had become so prevalent, and was cutting in so seriously on the business done by the commercial radio communications stations, that special rules have had to be passed
The offending amateurs were sly enough, but still they urn caught. Ihis is the way in which they worked.
Smith is a business man m New York, lie has a lare,e number of dealings with Jones, who is in business in I os Angeles. Smith and |ones
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find it necessary to be in constant communication. The mails are too slow, so they use the telephone and telegraph. But at the end of the month they find this is excessively expensive.
Smith gets a bright idea. Somehow he learns the name and address of a nearby amateur operator, whom he visits. They strike up a deal for the ham to handle messages for Smith and Jones, using some Los Angeles operator, with whom the New York ham is acquainted by radio, as the West Coast contact. They usually work out some simple code, so that if a government radio supervisor happens to be listening in, the commercial nature of the message won't be too obvious. And Smith and Jones pay off the amateurs with whom they work, either in cash or in tubes, condensers or other radio parts.
That was a good racket while it lasted, but it was stamped out at the latest session of the Radio Congress. Why, you may wonder, should anyone object to a system whereby the amateurs turned an honest dollar while helping business men save money?
The answer is simple: It wasn't an honest dollar. The amateurs were harming the business of regular communications companies, such as Western Union, Postal Telegraph, RCA Communications and the {Continued on page 79)
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