From: acourt@lunatix.uucp (Allan Courtney) Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave Subject: A Glossary of SW Abbreviations by Jay Mottern Keywords: SWL,Abbreviations,Terms,Jargon Date: 5 Jul 91 02:26:43 GMT Followup-To: rec.radio.shortwave Organization: Lexington Public Access Unix "9545 KHz 0113 UTC OM in EE, sounds like VOFC" "...say WHAT???" _________________________________________________________________________ * Them Shortwave Abbreviations Defined (Sort Of) * (Terms and Jargon, Too) _________________________________________________________________________ __ 1) Misc. OM Old Man, any male. YL Young Lady, any female, especially a single one. XYL Ex-Young Lady, a wifeperson. 73's Goodbye, so long, farewell, good luck, toodle-oo, like that. 88's Love and Kisses (be careful with this one, hi!). Hi Laughter in CW talk. CW Continuous Wave, the type of modulation used in sending Morse code. Also used to mean International Morse itself. RTTY Radio Teletype (low-speed data). FSK Frequency-shift keying, a type of modulation used for sending RTTY (sometimes used to mean the RTTY itself). De French for "from"- more CWese (i.e. "73's de KYJ123"). HF High frequency, the shortwave spectrum (3 to 30 MHz). Hz Hertz, an abbreviation for "cycles per second". Named in honor of Heinrich Hertz, a renter of horses. His steed allowed the chronically- late Nicolai Tesla (along with his scientific apparatus) to get to a certain hilltop in time for a predicted lightening storm, which electro- cuted him (or was that Ben Franklin?) Anyhow, Hertz is easier to say than cycles per second! AM Amplitude modulation- the information is transmitted by varying the height of the radio waveform. FM Frequency modulation- the info is transmitted by varying the frequency slightly, with respect to the center frequency. BFO Beat-frequency oscillator. See SSB. SSB Single Sideband. An AM radio signal has its main "carrier" waveform, plus a mini-waveform on each side of it- the sidebands. It was dis- covered that you could send and recieve the information using just one of the two sidebands, filtering out the other one and the carrier freq. An advantage is that a 100 watt transmitter pumping its full power into one sideband has the apparent power of a 300 watt AM rig, 'cause the power is more concentrated. Only trouble is, that sideband needs the carrier to "beat" against to be useable to the receiver. So, they built a fake-carrier-generator, a BFO, into the receiver. Swings! It works! USB Upper sideband. LSB Lower sideband. ECSSB Exaulted-carrier single sideband. The fine art of tuning an AM signal in either USB or LSB mode. Helps cut noise and interference, and helps boost weak signals a little. TX/RX Transmit/receive. STS Ship-to-shore. Actually, it's also shore-to-ship. This service often uses different freqs for TX and RX, sometimes uses the same freq for both. Usually STS traffic is just personal telephone calls. VFO Variable frequency oscillator. The tuning gizmo in most modern PLL (phase-locked loop) receivers. No, I'm not gonna try to explain PLL circuitry, except to say that it's *real* stable- the freq doesn't drift hardly at all, even when you first turn the receiver on. IS Interval signal. Usually a few bars of a musical composition associated with a particular country, sometimes its National Anthem. Used as a kind of radio test-pattern while the station engineer warms up and/or tunes the transmitter; as a means of telling listeners that a program is about to be broadcast; and as a means of IDing a station. For instance, VOA's IS is Yankee Doodle, Radio Australia's is Waltzing Matilda, Red China's is the first 3 notes of Forward Left, and RSA's is a tune played on an acoustic guitar alternated with a bird call ("bokmakene" bird). IF Internal frequency. See het. Het Heterodyne. 1) That whistle you hear when two stations are using the same frequency or two freqs too close together. 2) A freq generated internally (IF) in your receiver. Take a radio frequency. Mix it with a much lower freq (the IF). The results are two new freq's- the original radio freq plus the IF, and the original radio freq minus the IF. Fil- ter out the higher freq, then do it all again. And so on, and so on. Pretty soon the frequency is low enough to fall within the audio spec- trum. Pump it through a loudspeaker, and you gots radideo! (Gee, Mr. Wizard!) Superhet = double-conversion= 2 IF stages in the receiver. SWL 1) Shortwave listener. 2) Me and you. 3) Not your average rap musician. 4) Creede. DX 1) Distance. 2) Any hard-to-hear station, regardless of actual distance. La Voz de la Loco Gringo in Ecuador running 2 kilowatts would be DX, even in the southeastern USA. Radio Moscow from the USSR, running 500 kilowatts, would not (except during geo-magnetic storms, solar flares. etc. :) ). Ham Amateur radio, or an amateur radio operator. The term "ham" comes from travelling theatres back in the 1880's. If an actor would over-indulge in his role, the rural audience would respond by throwing smoked pig meat at him (tomatoes not being very common in those days). What this has to do with radio, I have no idea. Ute A utility broadcast or broadcaster. Can be SSB, AM, FAX, CW... Basically if it ain't a government broadcast, a commercial broadcast, a religious broadcast, a ham, or Mother Nature, then it's a ute. FAX Facsimile. Take a photo, a letter, a weathermap. If you decide black = a certain frequency (or power level, or digital code), white = another freq (lvl, code) and the various shades of grey = freqs/lvls/codes in between, you can convert the image into some sort of data format. If the receiving station uses the same conventions you're using, it can reproduce a facsimile of the original photo/document/map. In the HF band, fax is usually used for receiving weathermaps from satellites, and sometimes press photos from wire services abroad. ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interexchange. Early manufactur- ers of TTY (teletype) equipment each assigned their own hexadecimal values to letters, numbers and special characters/punctuation marks. This meant that no two brands of gear were compatable. Finally, they agreed to standardize, and the text/hex format they chose is ASCII. ("Text/Hex"? Carumba!) Baudot A famous French movie actress. ATC Either Air Traffic Control or Automatic Teller Machine, depending on how much money you have. UTC From the French for Universal Coordinated Time (Universal Time de Co- ordinatie, or something like that). Used to be called Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The absent-minded astronomers at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, were constantly forgetting to wind their watches and kept pestering the locals for the correct time. The local people vented their frustration by playing tricks on the scientists- tying their shoelaces together, putting "kick me" signs on their backsides, etc.- Thus was the tradition of Greenwich Mean Time born. The name was changed so as not to scare away the tourists. UTC is still an international time standard in 24-hour clock format. Zero hours UTC is midnight in Greenwich, England. The military refers to UTC as Zulu time, or just Zulu. I'm not even going to try to explain this! SINPO A shorthand method of rating various properties of a received signal. STRENGTH INTERFERENCE NOISE PROPOGATION OVERALL 5. Excellent none none none excellent 4. Good slight slight slight good 3. Fair moderate moderate moderate fair 4. Poor severe severe severe poor 5. Barely audible extreme extreme extreme barely audible VOLMET A contraction of the French words for "flying weather" (I can't find my LaRousse's, so you'll have to look it up yourselves). Aeronautical weather broadcasts. Several countries broadcast on the same freq but at different times after the hour (i.e. Honolulu on the hour, Tokyo at hour +10, Hong Kong at hour +15, Sydney, Australia at hour +20. So if you hear a VOLMET broadcast, stay tuned- you might catch some inter- esting DX. QRM CW uses a lot of 3-letter codes beginning with the letter Q. Two of & these codes are commonly used by SWL's, too. QRM means interference QSL by another station nearby or on the same frequency. QSL means for a station to verify reception, or the verification itself (as in QSL card). QSLs are given as a courtesy by most SW broadcasters and col- lected by many SWLs. IRC International Reply Coupon- available at the post office. These are internationally recognized scrip, redeemable for stamps at post off- ices worldwide- basically, the international version of the SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope). Not usually required by inter- national broadcasters, but if a station who wasn't broadcasting to you (a domestic/regional station, a utility, etc.) DOES send you a QSL they're doing you a favor. They're more likely to do so if it doesn't cost them anything. So buy IRCs and pay their postage! ________________________________________________________________________________ 2) Commonly used abbreviations for certain stations and broadcasting authorities ABC Australian Broadcasting Company (domestic service) AFRTS (Airfarts) Armed Forces Radio and Television Service- alas, no longer to be found in the HF spectrum. AFRTS has gone satellite. They used to have very good sports coverage- World Series games, etc. AIR All India Radio (domestic and external services) BBC (the Beeb) British Broadcasting Corporation (domestic and external svcs) BRT Belgische Radio et Televisie, Belgium CBC Canadian Broadcasting Corporation DW Deutche Welle, (ex West) Germany FEBC Far Eastern Broadcasting Company, Saipan, Northern Marianas (religious) HCJB "Heralding Christ Jesus' Blessings", aka the Voice of the Andes, Ecuador NHK Nippon Hoso Kyokai, Japanese broadcasting authority. Radio Japan is the external service. RAI Radiotelevisione Italia RCI Radio Canada International (external service, now almost non-existant due to budget cuts- merely relays domestic programs). RFI Radio France International RFNY Radio Free New York RNE Radio Nacional d'Espana, Spain (used to be Radio Exterior d'Espana) RNI Radio Netherlands International RNZ Radio New Zealand SABC South African Broadcasting Commission (domestic service) SRI Swiss Radio International VOA Voice Of America VOFC Voice Of Free China, Taiwan WYFR Call letters of Family Radio (religious) _______________________________________________________________________________ 3) Language codes EE English SS Spanish FF French RR Russian JJ Japanese AA Arabic CC Chinese PP Portugese SrCr Serbo-Croatian ________________________________________________________________________________ _ 4) Credits I wrote this for the newcomers to the GEnie SW RTC who are always wondering what various terms and abbreviations mean. It is free to the public domain. If anyone cares to share this with fellow SWL's, feel free. I hope it proves use- ful, or at least entertaining, to someone. Most of the info came out of by own head, but I did use a few books to re- fresh my memory here and there (and if I wasn't sure about my facts, I didn't hesitate to make something up! If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance...): The Complete Shortwave Listener's Handbook by Hank Bennet and Harry L. Helms I highly recommend this book for new SWL's (scannerizers, too) Passport to World Band Radio World Radio TV Handbook (WTRH or WTVRH) Get one or both of these! Passport is the closest thing to a TV Guide for shortwave radio. WTRH gives details like a station's chief engineers' name, the station's address, phone number, telex address, their IS signal, etc. Ferrell's Confidential Frequency List by Geoff Halligey Not what the name indicates- it's a list of utility broadcasters, mostly wire services and other commercial HF users, listed by frequency. Shortwave Directory by Bob Grove Another ute directory, leaning more towards military, Coast Guard, Air Traffic Control and other Government agencies. Listing is by type of ser- vice or by agency. Electronic Communication by Robert L. Shrader One of my old college textbooks. Meant for people studying to get a com- mercial or Ham license. It was the only place I could find complete info on all the Q-codes. These books all have glossaries that define SW terminology in greater detail (and much more accurately) than I can. -Jay Mottern ___________________________________________________________________________ | | Allan L. Courtney, DMD acourt@lunatix.uucp| | | o | SWL Topic Leader ukma!lunatix!acourt| o | | | GEnie Radio & Electronics RT or | | | o | GEmail: A.COURTNEY acourt%lunatix.uucp@ms.uky.edu| o | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^