Jeff Davis, KE9V

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Hiram Percy Maxim 1869-1936

Posted: 24 Oct 2016 02:58 PM PDT
https://ke9v.net/2016/10/24/hiram-pe...xim-1869-1936/


Everyone in amateur radio knows something about Hiram Percy Maxim founder
of the American Radio Relay League, inventor, and author. His last used
call sign, W1AW, is memorialized at ARRL headquarters.

I don’t mean to use this space for lessons in history, but I did want to
share a few pertinent details about Maxim since 2016 marks the 80th
anniversary of his passing, and I’ve been surprised that more hasn’t been
made of that milestone in radio related publications…


Maxim died in 1936 in La Junta, Colorado after falling suddenly ill from a
throat infection while traveling from California to his home in Connecticut
by rail. He had been visiting the Lick Observatory just east of San Jose.

Maxim had many interests, and astronomy was one of them.

In fact, Maxim authored a few books during his lifetime and one of them,
Life’s Place in the Cosmos, implied that life might exist elsewhere besides
Earth, a concept considered anti- Christian in those days and one that
brought him considerable criticism from religious practitioners.

Hiram was born in 1869, perhaps the perfect season for invention.

His father, Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim was the inventor of the Maxim Machine
Gun while HPM became the inventor of the ‘Maxim Silencer’, a silencer for
firearms and a muffler for gasoline engines. The turn of the century placed
the youthful Maxim at the intersection of progress and technology. In
addition to his own work on the silencer, he became a prominent figure in
the development of the automobile.

His interest in radio came in middle age, and by 1914 he teamed up with
Clarence Tuska to create the American Radio Relay League initially
intended as an organization of relay stations for the purpose of passing
traffic more efficiently. In its original form, the ARRL was a project of
the Hartford Radio Club, but it soon ended this association and was
incorporated under Connecticut law.

The ARRL grew quickly as wireless had become the hot new thing of the 20th
century and there was need for organization of the hobby, especially in
those days before government regulation of the radio spectrum. The new
organization had only gotten started when it was interrupted by the
American entry in the First World War in 1917 and hobby radio was shelved
by government order – even going so far as to demand the dismantling of
antennas.

After the War, the military made a play to take command of all radio
frequency spectrum and the ARRL fought those efforts. The result was the
stuff of legend. Ham radio survived, radio technology blossomed, and HP
Maxim went to his grave knowing that amateur radio’s future was secure and
would endure for many generations.

During his later years at the League, he penned an anonymous column in QST
Magazine that often took bad operators to task for their shortcomings.
Often threatening retribution with instruments of torture like the
Rettysnitch and the dreaded Wouff-Hong. These columns were always signed,
“The Old Man� or T.O.M.

It was only after his passing that the cat was let out of the bag
confirming that Maxim was indeed, The Old Man. Using the success of the
ARRL as a model, Maxim founded the Amateur Cinema League in New York in
1926. His many interests seem eclectic, however, these were all emerging
technologies and he was able to stand on the forefront of many of them.