Hiram Percy Maxim
| Hiram Percy Maxim | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 2, 1869, Brooklyn, New York |
| Died | February 17, 1936, La Junta, Colorado |
| Occupation | Engineer and inventor |
| Known for | Co-founding the ARRL; the Maxim Silencer |
| Amateur radio | |
| Call sign | 1AW, later W1AW |
| Memorial station | W1AW, Newington, Connecticut |
| Offices held | President of the ARRL from 1914 until his death; first president of the IARU |
| Pen name | "The Old Man" (T.O.M.), in QST |
Hiram Percy Maxim (1869–1936) was an American engineer and inventor who co-founded the American Radio Relay League in 1914 and led it as president for the rest of his life. Outside radio he is best known for the Maxim Silencer, an early firearm suppressor, and he was also an automobile pioneer and a promoter of amateur filmmaking. His call sign, 1AW, lives on as W1AW, the ARRL's headquarters station, which is named in his memory.
Early life and inventions
Maxim was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Hiram Stevens Maxim, the American-born inventor of the Maxim machine gun, who later settled in England and was knighted. The younger Maxim trained as an engineer and in the 1890s joined the Pope Manufacturing Company in Hartford, Connecticut, where he worked on some of the earliest American motor vehicles, including electric and gasoline cars sold under the Columbia name.
His best-known invention came next. Maxim developed a silencer for firearms, patented in 1909, that used internal baffles to slow and cool the expanding gases from a shot. The same principles were later applied to mufflers for engines and to other noise-reduction products.
Founding the ARRL
Maxim took up wireless as a hobby and operated his station, 1AW, from Hartford. Amateur stations of the time had short and unreliable range, and Maxim saw that messages could travel much farther if they were passed from one station to the next along organized routes. In 1914 he put the idea to the Radio Club of Hartford, and with Clarence D. Tuska, a younger fellow amateur, he founded the American Radio Relay League to set up and run those relays. The league began publishing its journal, QST, in December 1915.
When US amateurs were ordered off the air during World War I, Maxim led the league's campaign to get them back, and amateur operation resumed in 1919. In 1925 he helped found the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU), which now represents national amateur societies around the world, and he served as its first president.
"The Old Man"
Maxim wrote often for QST, and some of his best-remembered pieces appeared under the pen name "The Old Man", or T.O.M. Written in the voice of a crusty veteran operator, they grumbled, with a good deal of humor, about poor operating habits, interference and the state of the hobby, and they helped give the early league and its magazine their personality.
Other interests
Maxim's enthusiasms went well beyond radio. He was an early advocate of home movies and in 1926 helped found the Amateur Cinema League, an organization for amateur filmmakers. He also wrote books, including A Genius in the Family, a humorous memoir of growing up with his inventor father.
Death and legacy
Maxim died in La Junta, Colorado, on February 17, 1936. The ARRL built a memorial station in his honor, and his call sign was assigned to it as W1AW, the form it had taken after US call signs gained the W prefix in the late 1920s. The Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Station stands on the grounds of ARRL headquarters in Newington, Connecticut, near Hartford. It transmits Morse code practice and bulletins on a published schedule, and licensed visitors may operate it during visiting hours.
The ARRL also presents the Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Award each year to a young amateur for service to the hobby. More broadly, much of what Maxim set in motion, from organized message handling and nets to national advocacy for amateur frequencies, remains at the center of amateur radio in the United States.