San Francisco Radio Club

Voices of the Community

“It's for the community. We're trying to serve the community. We all live here. You know, how are we going to serve our community going forward?” - Greg

In this episode, our featured voice is the president of the San Francisco Radio Club Greg Albrecht. The San Francisco Radio Club was formed in 1909 by a handful of radio enthusiasts with the objective of exchanging messages over the air. We wanted to host the San Francisco Radio Club on the show because it is another one of our wonderful nonprofits that are supporting our community through providing emergency communication services as well as educating and training community members in amateur radio and emergency mesh operations. You can find out more about club membership here:

Greg mentions in our interview the term Ham or Hams. The actual meaning of HAM is taken from the three pioneers that helped to create what has become our global radio system. The letter H stands for Hertz from (Heinrich Hertz) who helped to develop the theory of electromagnetic waves. The letter A stands for Armstrong from (Edwin Howard Armstrong) who was successful in inventing FM (Frequency Modulation) and the letter M stands for Marconi (Gugliemo Marconi) who was the first person to transmit radio signals across the Atlantic Ocean in 1901. There's a Etymology of ham radio that disputes this and you can dive into more about ham radio here

Greg also mentions that the San Francisco Radio Club works with the Auxiliary Communications Service in San Francisco. Greg told us the story about his work on the San Francisco Wireless Emergency Mesh system and you can find out more about that here

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