Morse operators shorten everything: 73 is best regards, TNX is thanks, FB is fine business, OM is old man. Here are the 77 you will meet most often in a contact, each with its Morse and the source it comes from. For three-letter codes that start with Q, see the Q-codes.
A short exchange between two invented stations, the way it sounds on the air. Signal reports use RST, and QTH is the Q-code for location.
CQ CQ DE W1ABC W1ABC K
Calling any station, this is W1ABC, go ahead.
W1ABC DE G3XYZ K
W1ABC, this is G3XYZ, over to you.
G3XYZ DE W1ABC GM OM TNX FER CALL UR RST 579 579 HR NAME JOE HW CPY? G3XYZ DE W1ABC KN
Good morning, thanks for the call. Your signal report is 579. My name here is Joe. How do you copy? Over to you only.
W1ABC DE G3XYZ R FB JOE TNX RPRT UR RST 599 NAME ANN QTH LONDON 73 W1ABC DE G3XYZ SK
Received, fine, Joe. Thanks for the report, yours is 599. My name is Ann, my location London. Best regards. End of contact.
Hear any line of it: paste it into the audio generator, or decode a recording of a real contact with the audio decoder.
Available on iOS and Android. Free to download.
Free · iOS & Android · 27 Languages
See how it worksBest regards. Operators send 73 at the end of a contact, on CW and on voice alike. It is written and said as 73, never 73s or best 73s: the number already means best regards.
Love and kisses. The same rule as 73 applies: 88, not 88s.
Fine business: good, excellent. It turns up in replies such as R FB OM, "received, all good, old man".
Old man, young lady and ex-young lady. OM is how operators address a male operator, YL a female operator, and XYL means an operator's wife.
Sent as one character (...-.-) at the end of a contact, SK is the prosign for end of contact. Used as a word, a silent key is an operator who has died.
A few are: CQ, DE, K, R, PSE, TU, WX, CFM, RPT and others are defined for maritime radio in ITU-R M.1172. Most of the rest are amateur radio convention, recorded by the ARRL and by the operating guide of ON4UN and ON4WW. The table marks which source carries each one.
