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! |
| Wx | Weather |
| XYL | “Ex-Young Lady”! 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 |