A Genuine Hamm

Brother William Hamm, Ph.D., St. Mary’s physics professor emeritus, is quite used to hearing people say how well his hobby fits his name. After all, his first amateur radio, which he built while in the third grade, won him first place in a Boy Scouts’ contest, whetting his enthusiasm for what would be a lifelong interest.

The first St. Mary’s professor to be honored for his academic achievement by the prestigious Piper Foundation in 1958, Hamm also has the distinction of being the first religious educator in the United States to receive a Fellow Award for teaching and research from the Institute of Radio Engineers. And, he also holds a Centennial Medal from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for exceptional service to the organization and the profession.

St. Mary’s had its first radio-telephone transmitter in 1937, two years after Brother Hamm’s appointment in 1935 as a St. Mary’s physics professor.

“It was very primitive electronics,” he remembers. “We built it from scrap materials found around the physics laboratory. We made coil forms by winding paper around glass test tubes. And we had help from friends who donated various parts.”

Part of Hamm’s enjoyment in international networking by amateur radio is helping people communicate across the miles on special occasions. “I’ve used the radio many times to connect up relatives and friends,” he says.

“W5FMG, San Antonio, Texas,” you can hear him calling, repeating the call in international phonetics as “Doubleyew-five-Fox-Mike-George.” But the FMG call means much more to him than that. He likes to think “For Mary’s Glory” is what those letters really stand for.

Brother William Hamm, S.M., died Jan. 11, 2002, at the age of 91. He was a Marianist for 75 years.