March 12th 04, 01:43 AM
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Avery Fineman wrote:
In article , Dennis Howdy
writes:
Serious question. What does "73" mean?
I have a stack of "73"mags. I'm not a ham however.
If I was, I of course would know.
Anybody? I know it's a stupid question, but I don't know.
After 1844 (the year of the first commercial telegraph service in the
USA, Baltimore, MD to Washington, DC), the blazing speed of the
early electromechanical sounders made it necessary for
commercial telegraphers to to use abbreviations for standard
phrases in telegrams. It gave telegraphers a chance to send more
telegrams during a workday, increase their profits, etc., etc.
A whole bunch of different two-number sub-codes were invented
and used. Few survive to today since morse codes have survived
only in amateur radio.
One of the enduring sub-codes is "73" meaning "Best regards."
Hams use it on voice, as well. It has become traditional jargon.
Morse code did NOT begin as the character = dot-dash group
but was originally ALL numbers! Morse got a financial and lab
mentor in railroad heir Alfred Vail who is reported to have suggested
a change from the all-number code to one where each letter,
number, and common punctuation mark has a unique dot-dash
group. This latter improvement, along with a way to increase the
distance of a landline by using a "relay" of an electromagnet whose
magnetically-coupled switch substituted for a telegrapher's key in
an unmanned telegraph line relay station. Up to three such
"relays" could be used on a wired telegraph circuit. That may or
may not be the etymological origin of the word "relay" as the
component we know today.
The final version of morse code coding still doesn't allow much real
speed in communication so a number of abbreviations were used as
well as telegraphers' own jargon. One of those latter was the "R"
sent as or after simple queries, meaning "okay?" or "okay"
respectively. The dit-dah-dit of "R" has a nice little pattern to it and
is intuitive for that. It continued on into radio after 1896..."R" meaning
"okay" or "all right." With WW2's widespread use of radio of all kinds,
operators on voice followed suit with the phonetic alphabet "R" or
"Roger." "Roger" as an affirmative caught on and became common
jargon on voice. In spoken language it has found its own niche in
military use exemplified by "roger that!" meaning very affirmative. :-)
"Q codes" are an example of three-letter sub-codes to mean whole
phrases, either as queries (followed by a question mark) or as
responses (followed by answer information). Those came about in
radio since the letter "Q" was seldom used in English words...and
the transistor hadn't been invented yet. :-) "QSY" was a query as
to the exact frequency of a station (with spark transmitters that was
more of a guess) but stayed around until WW2 when it was used on
voice and teleprinter as a command to change frequency. "QSY
Frisco George to 6885" would be an abbreviated command on either
a telephone or teleprinter military radio order wire in the 1950s.
"QTH" is another that stuck around in other radio services referring
to a location.
Of course there are the "10 codes" used by the various police in
the USA during the late 1940s and 1950s. Dirty, Evil CBers
picked up on those and used them as short-form jargon, much to
the outrage of licensed amateurs, most of whom where not born in
1958 when CB on 11 meters was created. :-)
Some of the CB'ers (and quite a few of the hams on some of the 2 meter
repeaters) in NYC were using the un-offical 10 code of 10-100.
It meant, I have to go to the bathroom.
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