You think you know
amateur radio.
Not yet.
“I’ve been a ham for 40 years and I never knew that.”
Ham Radio Wayback Machine is a weekly deep-dive into the untold history of amateur radio — the inventors, the moments, the technology, and the people who shaped everything you plug into today. Every Friday you’ll learn something that changes the way you see this hobby.
Sign Up HereFree to join. No spam. Just history worth knowing. 73 de N2LEE
What’s that rig actually worth?
Now you’ll know before you click Buy.
The HRG Blue Book℠ tracks real asking prices from QRZ, QTH, and eBay — 100,000+ listings going back to 2021. Every week we pull the freshest numbers and drop them into your issue.
Sellers know this information. Now you will too. Whether you’re buying, selling, or just curious where the market is sitting on that K3 you’ve been eyeing — it’s in here.
- Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu, Elecraft, FlexRadio — all covered
- Asking price ranges, not just averages
- Updated from live listings every week
- Coming: Deal Alerts by brand, model, and price threshold
Know before you key up.
Every issue includes a plain-language HF operating forecast built from real sources — NOAA SWPC solar flux data, PSKReporter FT8 spot counts, RBN CW skimmer reports, WSPR paths, DXPulse, and OpenHamClock.
Not a data dump. A verdict. Which bands are actually working this weekend, where the DX is sitting, and which paths are open right now. Written for operators, not engineers.
- Band-by-band conditions for the coming weekend
- Active DXpeditions and where to find them
- Best DX paths by region — Caribbean, Europe, Pacific, Asia
- Geomagnetic storm warnings when they matter
- Synthesized from 6 real-world data sources every week
The hobby is growing. We track it.
Every issue we pull fresh numbers straight from the FCC Universal Licensing System — new Technician, General, and Extra class licenses issued each month.
You’ll see exactly how many new operators entered the hobby this month, which license class is growing fastest, and whether the trend is up or down. We put the context around the numbers so they actually mean something.
Stories already in the log.
Every issue stays in your archive. Miss one — it’s right there waiting. Here’s what’s already in the log.
Martin Cooper made the first cell phone call from a Manhattan sidewalk in 1973. What no one told you — it was aimed directly at a ham radio operator.
The real reason Martin Cooper invented the portable phone. It started with a car accident, a woman trapped, and a radio that couldn’t reach anyone who mattered.
RadioShack started as a ham radio supplier in 1921. How it became 8,000 stores — and why it died the moment it stopped serving hams.
ARRL Field Day was invented in 1933 by one man. That same man spent WWII in North Africa proving every exercise he’d put hams through for a decade actually worked.
William Halligan built Hallicrafters from a Depression-era garage. Before he was finished, his radios were on every front of World War II — and the Army had given him five awards to prove it.
A Hallicrafters receiver ended up aboard Air Force One. The same company that made it for Ike also built the equipment with the destruct button — for Vietnam.
During the Cold War, shortwave stations broadcast strings of numbers read by anonymous voices. Spies listened. Governments denied it. Some of those stations are still on the air.
Sign up now and it lands in your inbox Friday morning.
“I’ve been a ham for 40 years and I never knew that.”
— Subscriber, via email • 73 de N2LEE
Join free. Start this Friday.
Drop your callsign and email and you’re in. A new issue lands in your inbox every Friday morning — the story, the Blue Book, the HF forecast, all of it. No credit card. No catch.
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