Ham radio gifts, with every joke explained.

A ham's radio room is called the shack. "Worked" means made radio contact. Hams reach other countries from a chair at home.

It is the round emblem from the back of the dollar bill, with a radio tower in place of the pyramid. Hams put their spare dollars into towers and antennas, and most will admit it.

It borrows the ending of a famous old movie, with planes circling the top of the tallest tower in town. Here the tower is the antenna tower in the backyard, the one at the top is fixing the antenna, and dinner is on the table.

It is the Statue of Liberty, holding up a small antenna where the torch should be. Hams always want the antenna a little higher, and someone in the family is usually the one holding it.

It is the famous statue of the seated thinker, wearing headphones. Hams sit just like that, perfectly still, when they are trying to pick one faint voice out of the static.

It is the police lineup from every crime show, with four radios standing where the suspects would be. To everyone else in the house the radios look the same, and a new one tends to arrive quietly. This one still has its wrapping on.

It is a toy figure in its store packaging, the kind that always said something was sold separately. Here the figure is a radio operator, and the missing part is the antennas, which hams go on buying long after the radio.

It looks like one of the old newspaper photos of a flying saucer over a house. Look again and the saucer is a radio antenna on a pole, which is roughly how the neighbors see the one on your roof.

A monster-movie poster, told from the family's side: beeps through the floor, far-off voices, and dinner going cold.

People ask hams if it's like CB, the radio truckers use. It isn't. The last line copies the wording of the real ham license exam.

Every ham keeps boxes of old cables, in case one is needed some day. Nobody else is allowed to throw them out.

Hams spell words out as Bravo, Charlie, Delta so letters survive a noisy signal. This one does it at the eye doctor.

Many hams take a portable radio to parks and viewpoints, then spend the visit on the radio with their back to the view.

A phone call with a perfect signal gets ignored. A faint voice from New Zealand gets full attention. Far and faint is the prize.

A band is a range of radio frequencies. When one opens, signals carry around the world and nobody leaves the radio. Hence "Don't wait up."