Amateur Radio Code

Amateur Radio Code 

a conventional designation or abbreviation of a word used in amateur radio communications. Codes are used most widely in telegraphy. They include several international Q signals and some universally adopted abbreviations of words, mostly in English.

Each Q signal begins with the letter Q and consists of three letters, for example, QRS—“transmit more slowly.” A sentence transmitted without a question mark indicates an affirmation; with a question mark, it indicates a question. If the answer is negative, the negative particle “no” precedes the sentence or the particle “not” follows the sentence. Abbreviations of words are used to describe the technical data of the station apparatus and transmitting or receiving conditions and to express some general ideas that must be understood to maintain communications, for example, ABT—“about”—and TX—“transmitter.” In addition, some numerical designations have been chosen by convention; for example, the number 73 means “best wishes.” Soviet radio amateurs also use a number of abbreviations for Russian words; for example, BLG stands for blagodariu (“thank you”), DSV stands for do svidaniia (“good-bye”), and TOV stands for tovarishch (“comrade”).

REFERENCES

See references under .

I. V. KAZANSKII