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Wednesday, 03 March 2010 22:19 |
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Many of these abbreviations come from CW (see below!) operating, especially in the early days of amateur radio. Just as in the early days of texting on a mobile phone without word completion, shorthand was used.
| CQ |
Letters used by an operator when calling and looking for a contact with another radio amateur. |
| CW |
Continuous Wave - more familiarly known as Morse. It's not really continuous wave, since you have to break it up into the dahs and dits to communicate information. |
| DX |
Distance communication. This can mean around the World, across the Atlantic, or just across the Irish Sea, depending on the frequency band and so on being used. |
| FM |
Frequency modulation. Popular in handheld radios, but greedy on the batteries, since when transmitting a full power signal is transmitted all the time. |
| OM |
Old man. Any (male) radio amateur. |
| Operator |
The person operating the amateur radio station. |
| SSB |
Single sideband. Popular for voice DX communication, since it's economical with the power; if there's no sound, there's no signal! |
| XYL |
Normally used to mean the (male) operator's wife. Don't often hear of an XYM ... but then there are not as many YL operators as there should be. |
| YL |
Young lady |
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Last Updated on Friday, 22 June 2012 10:52 |
Jargon
