Codes and Alphabets

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CW Abbreviations
These abbreviations are commonly used in CW transmissions to shorten transmission times. Not all CW operators use all of them - most will use very few. As a general rule most operators do not abbreviate unnecessarily, especially when communication with an operator that they do not know or whose experience is unknown. In contest conditions, abbreviations are common as operators try to gain as many contacts as possible over the competition period.

Morse Code
International Morse code is composed of five elements:

1. short mark, dot or 'dit' (·) — one unit long 2. longer mark, dash or 'dah' (–) — three units long 3. intra-character gap (between the dots and dashes within a character) — one unit long 4. short gap (between letters) — three units long 5. medium gap (between words) — seven units long

External link : Morse Code

Phonetic Alphabet - Nato
A number of phonetic alphabets exist. the nato version is most common and can be considered to be the "international" phonetic alphabet.

Q-Code
These codes were oringinally developed to shorten transmission times when using CW, but are frequently used in voice transmissions eg. I and going to go QRT, thanks for the QSO.

More information abut the history and usage of Q-codes can be found here.

RSQ code
Often used to describe reception and quality of digital modes such as PSK31