Tue, 23 Jul 2024
Ham Radio's Technical Culture looks like an interesting book, and here is an excerpt

Amateur — or ham — radio seems like a forgotten art in the age of cell phones and the internet (and with my own gear remaining in boxes), though it is far from that.

I subscribe to a few great newsletters, including Zero Retries — https://www.zeroretries.org — The Random Wire — https://www.randomwire.us — and Ria's Ham Shack — https://n2rj.substack.com. I should probably look for more. And find my "place" in ham radio. I've had a license for longer than I care to admit and have been inactive most of that time.

It was nice to see The Rich History of Ham Radio Culture — https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-rich-history-of-ham-radio-culture — a lengthy excerpt from Kristen Haring's MIT Press book, Ham Radio's Technical Culture — https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262582766/ham-radios-technical-culture, available via Amazon for a pricey $40.97 for what seems to be the final copy — https://www.amazon.com/Radios-Technical-Culture-Inside-Technology/dp/0262083558, though some used copies are being sold for slightly under $30.

Though already out of print, I can't think of that many books being written about amateur radio in a historical or scholarly context, and I welcome this one as well as more in the future. I think the same thing about other technical subjects like computing, programming and operating systems. I'd like some analysis and history sprinkled in with the soon-to-be stale how-tos that we usually get, though technically oriented books of all kinds have really dropped off over the past decade.

On this same note, I was saddened to learn that A Book Apart — https://abookapart.com/pages/about/ — which produced print books about Web design and general tech, has closed for good. One upside is that at least some of the writers of its books are acquiring the rights to their work and are selling those books and keeping all the money: https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/reacquired/.