Morse code abbreviations

Abbreviations commonly used in Morse code

Morse code abbreviations are used to speed up Morse communications by foreshortening textual words and phrases. Morse abbreviations are short forms, representing normal textual words and phrases formed from some (fewer) characters taken from the word or phrase being abbreviated. Many are typical English abbreviations, or short acronyms for often used phrases.

Morse code abbreviations are not the same as prosigns. Morse abbreviations are composed of (normal) textual alpha numeric character symbols with normal Morse code inter character spacing; the character symbols in abbreviations, unlike the delineated character groups representing Morse code prosigns, are not "run together" or concatenated in the way most prosigns are formed. Although a few abbreviations (such as for "dollar") are carried over from former commercial telegraph codes, almost all Morse abbreviations are not commercial codes. From 1845 until well into the second half of the 20th century, commercial telegraphic code books were used to shorten telegrams, e. g. = "Locals have plundered everything from the wreck." However, these cyphers are typically "fake" words six characters long, or more, used for replacing commonly used whole phrases, and are distinct from single word abbreviations.

Rag chewer is a name applied to amateur radio Morse code operators who engage in informal Morse code conversations (known as chewing the rag) while discussing subjects such as: The weather, their location, signal quality, and their equipment (especially the antennas being used). Meaningful rag chewing between fluent Morse code operators having different native languages is possible because of a common language provided by the prosigns for Morse code, the International Q code, Z code, RST code, the telegraph era Phillips Code and 92 codes, and many well known Morse code abbreviations including those discussed in this article. Together all of these traditional conventions serve as a somewhat cryptic but commonly understood language (Lingua Franca) within the worldwide community of amateur radio Morse code operators. These codes and protocols efficiently encode many well known statements and questions from many languages into short simple character groups which may be tapped out very quickly. The international Q code for instance encodes literally hundreds of full normal language sentences and questions in short three character codes each beginning with the character For example, the code word means My transmitting location is   , which radio operators typically take instead to mean My home is  If this code word is followed by a question mark as ? it means What is your transmitting location? Typically very few full words will be spelled out in Morse code conversations. Similar to phone texting, vowels are often left out to shorten transmissions and turn overs. Other examples, of internationally recognized usages of Morse code abbreviations and well known code numbers, such as those of the Phillips Code from past eras of telegraph technology, are usages such as for weather and for dollar, and from wire signal codes, the numbers 73 for best regards and 88 for love and kisses. These techniques are similar to, and often faster than, texting on modern cellphones. Using this extensive Lingua Franca that is widely understood across many languages and cultures, surprisingly meaningful Morse code conversations can be efficiently conducted with short transmissions independently of native languages, even between operators who cannot actually communicate by voice because of language barriers! With heavy use of the Q code and Morse code abbreviations, surprisingly meaningful conversations can readily occur. Note that in the preceding example conversation very few full English words have been used. In fact, in the above example S1 and S2 might not speak the same native language. Although lengthy or detailed conversations could not, of course, be accomplished by radio operators with no common language. Contesters often use a very specialized and even shorter format for their contacts. Their purpose is to process as many contacts as possible in a limited time (e. g. 100–150 contacts per hour).