Timeline of amateur radio

Timeline of amateur radio
Span	1844 to 2026
First US amateur licenses	December 1912, under the Radio Act of 1912
ARRL founded	1914
IARU founded	April 1925, in Paris
Milestones
First two-way transatlantic contact	November 27, 1923, France to the US
First amateur satellite	OSCAR 1, launched December 12, 1961
First ham operation from space	Owen Garriott, W5LFL, on STS-9 in 1983
First ham contact from the ISS	November 13, 2000
Licensing and modes
Morse test made optional by the ITU	2003 (WRC-03)
Last US Morse test dropped	February 23, 2007
FT8 released	June 29, 2017

This timeline of amateur radio lists key dates in the hobby's history, from the telegraph and early wireless to satellites, space stations and weak-signal digital modes. It includes milestones from many countries, grouped by era, with links to the articles that tell more. For a narrative account, see History of amateur radio; for the people involved, see Notable amateur radio operators.

Beginnings to 1920

• 1844 – On May 24, Samuel Morse sent "What hath God wrought" over a telegraph line from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore; his name lives on in Morse code.
• 1895 – On May 7, Alexander Popov demonstrated his wireless receiver to members of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society.
• 1899 – On March 27, Guglielmo Marconi sent the first international radio transmission, across the English Channel from France to the South Foreland Lighthouse in England.
• 1901 – On December 12, Marconi reported hearing the Morse letter S, sent from Poldhu in Cornwall, at Signal Hill, Newfoundland.
• 1909 – Young New York experimenters founded the Junior Wireless Club on January 2; it took the name Radio Club of America in 1911.
• 1912 – After the Titanic sank, the US Radio Act of 1912 brought amateurs under federal licensing from December 13 and limited most to wavelengths of 200 meters and shorter.
• 1913 – The London Wireless Club, forerunner of the Radio Society of Great Britain, was inaugurated in West Hampstead on July 5.
• 1914 – Hiram Percy Maxim and Clarence Tuska founded the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) to organize the relaying of messages from one amateur station to the next.
• 1914 – On October 6, Edwin Howard Armstrong received a US patent for his regenerative receiving circuit.
• 1915 – The ARRL's journal, QST, first appeared in December.
• 1917 – When the United States entered World War I, the government ordered all amateur stations closed; amateurs were back on the air in 1919.

1920s to 1940s

• 1921 – During the ARRL's transatlantic tests, Paul Godley, listening at Ardrossan, Scotland, copied a message sent on December 11 by 1BCG, a station in Greenwich, Connecticut, run by members of the Radio Club of America.
• 1923 – On November 27, Léon Deloy, 8AB, in Nice, France, and the Americans Fred Schnell, 1MO, and John Reinartz, 1XAM, completed the first two-way transatlantic amateur contact.
• 1925 – Delegates from 23 countries met in Paris in April and founded the International Amateur Radio Union, with Maxim as its first president; April 18 is now World Amateur Radio Day.
• 1927 – The US Radio Act of 1927 created the Federal Radio Commission, and an international conference in Washington gave amateurs their first internationally recognized bands.
• 1928 – Paul M. Segal, W9EEA, wrote The Radio Amateur's Code, six short points describing the ideal operator.
• 1933 – The ARRL held the first Field Day, now an annual June event in which hams set up and operate temporary stations.
• 1934 – The Communications Act of 1934, signed on June 19, created the Federal Communications Commission, which still licenses US amateurs.
• 1935 – Clinton B. DeSoto, W1CBD, set out rules for counting countries worked in an October QST article, the basis of the DXCC award.
• 1936 – Maxim died on February 17, and in December the FCC assigned his call sign to the ARRL in his memory as W1AW.
• 1937 – Grote Reber, W9GFZ, put up the first radio telescope built for astronomy, in his backyard.
• 1938 – On September 2, Maxim's birthday, the ARRL dedicated W1AW, the Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Station in Newington, Connecticut.
• 1941 – US amateurs were ordered off the air after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December; operation began to resume in August 1945.
• 1948 – Bell Labs announced the invention of the transistor on June 30.

1950s to 1970s

• 1950s – Through the 1950s and 1960s, Single sideband replaced AM as the main voice mode on HF, using less than half the bandwidth.
• 1952 – The first Dayton Hamvention opened in Dayton, Ohio, on March 22.
• 1957 – After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 on October 4, hams around the world could hear its signals on 20.005 and 40.002 MHz.
• 1957 – After the World Scout Jamboree in England, where local hams ran station GB3SP, Leslie Mitchell, G3BHK, tested the idea that became Jamboree on the Air.
• 1960 – On July 21, the club stations W1BU and W6HB made the first two-way amateur moonbounce contact, on 1296 MHz.
• 1961 – OSCAR 1, the first amateur satellite, reached orbit as a secondary payload on December 12 and sent "HI" in Morse code.
• 1964 – The Islands on the Air program was established to encourage contacts with island stations.
• 1969 – AMSAT was chartered on March 3 in Washington, D.C., as a nonprofit educational corporation.
• 1970 – Australis-OSCAR 5, built by University of Melbourne students, became Australia's first amateur satellite when it was launched on January 23.
• 1970s – In California, repeaters on the 2-meter band multiplied after low-cost FM radios began arriving from Japan around 1969; in Southern California alone, more than 250 open 2-meter repeaters were on the air by 1979.
• 1974 – AMSAT-OSCAR 7 was launched on November 15; its Mode B transponder was built in Germany by Karl Meinzer and Werner Haas of AMSAT-DL. Silent from 1981 to 2002, it still works when in sunlight.
• 1978 – On May 31, the first amateur packet transmission was made in Montreal, the beginning of amateur packet radio.
• 1978 – On October 26, the Soviet Union launched its first amateur satellites, RS-1 and RS-2, together on one rocket.

1980s and 1990s

• 1983 – Owen Garriott, W5LFL, became the first ham to operate from space, aboard Space Shuttle Columbia on mission STS-9, launched on November 28.
• 1985 – The FCC's PRB-1 ruling limited how far state and local governments may restrict amateur antennas.
• 1990 – The European body CEPT issued Recommendation T/R 61-02, defining HAREC, a common amateur exam certificate.
• 1991 – The no-code Technician license took effect in February, letting new US hams get licensed without a Morse test.
• 1992 – Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, gave the name APRS to his system for sharing positions and other local information by packet.
• 1993 – The Canadian Radio Relay League and the Canadian Amateur Radio Federation merged to form Radio Amateurs of Canada.
• 1996 – On August 17, Japan's JAS-2 satellite was launched from Tanegashima and became Fuji-OSCAR 29.
• 1996 – In November, amateur organizations from the countries building the International Space Station signed the agreement that created ARISS.

2000s to today

• 2000 – The first amateur contact from the ISS was made on November 13, during Expedition 1, and the first school contact followed in December.
• 2001 – Joe Taylor, K1JT, first released WSJT, the weak-signal software that grew into WSJT-X.
• 2002 – Summits on the Air began in Great Britain.
• 2003 – The World Radiocommunication Conference, WRC-03, left it to each country to decide whether amateurs must pass a Morse test.
• 2003 – US amateurs gained access to the 60-meter band on July 3, and on July 26 the United Kingdom ended compulsory Morse testing.
• 2005 – On May 5, India launched HAMSAT, an amateur microsatellite carrying one Indian-built and one Dutch-built transponder.
• 2005 – After Hurricane Katrina struck in late August, ARES volunteers provided communications where storm damage had knocked out normal links.
• 2007 – On February 23, the FCC's elimination of the Morse code exam for all US license classes, adopted in December 2006, took effect.
• 2017 – Parks on the Air began as an independent program early in the year, after the ARRL's National Parks on the Air event of 2016 ended.
• 2017 – In late June, Joe Taylor and Steve Franke, K9AN, introduced FT8 as a new mode for WSJT-X; by the end of the year it accounted for more contacts logged to Club Log than CW or SSB.
• 2017 – On September 15, FCC rules opening the 2200-meter and 630-meter bands to US amateurs took effect; each station first had to notify the Utilities Technology Council and wait 30 days.
• 2018 – On November 15, Qatar's Es'hail-2 satellite was launched, carrying the first geostationary amateur transponders, later named QO-100.
• 2020 – Many US license exams moved online, and in September ARISS put a new radio into service on the ISS as an FM cross-band repeater.
• 2024 – In February, Ofcom updated UK amateur licenses, raising the Full license power limit to 1,000 watts PEP in bands where amateurs have a primary allocation and letting Foundation and Intermediate licensees operate remotely over the internet.
• 2025 – On April 1, Rabea Rogge, LB9NJ, made the first amateur radio contact from a SpaceX Crew Dragon, during the Fram2 mission.
• 2025 – The IARU marked its centenary.
• 2026 – The FCC deleted four obsolete provisions of Part 97 effective February 10, and on February 13 opened a new 5351.5–5366.5 kHz segment on 60 meters.

Anniversaries in this timeline, such as World Amateur Radio Day on April 18, are often marked on the air by special event stations. Watch club newsletters and spotting sites around those dates for a chance to work a station celebrating a piece of radio history.

See also

• History of amateur radio
• HamWiki:This month in ham radio history
• Notable amateur radio operators
• Amateur satellites
• ARRL

External links

• International Amateur Radio Union: About us
• AMSAT: A brief history of AMSAT
• ARISS history