Abbreviations and acronyms

This is a non-exhaustive list of acronyms, abbreviations and conventions used in RadCom.

At the bottom of the page you will also find some of the conventions used in GB2RS Local News and RadCom Club Calendar plus an explanation of common symbols used in RadCom and other RSGB publications. Some of the definitions may vary slightly from those published elsewhere: the meanings listed here reflect their usage in RadCom.

(As time permits, I am slowly going through the list and adding links to relevant definitions and/or organisations etc. Whilst many of the subjects, for example ARDF, are covered on the RSGB website I have elected to use Wikipedia as the primary reference source, at least for the initial run-through. The exception to this is organisations, such as ARRL, where I link to their home page. You’re welcome to open a discussion with me about this via the email address below. Giles, G1MFG, 29 July 2021)

We welcome any suggested amateur radio-related additions to this list: if you would like to contribute new entries (or corrections), please email radcom@rsgb.org.uk with the subject line Acronyms and if possible format your additions as acronym <tab> expansion.

 

Abbreviations and acronyms list

Note: the abbreviations are capitalised correctly as they should appear and the expansions use capitals where they are properly required – eg

k                  kilo (multiplier, x 1,000)
K                  kelvin (temperature)
RSGB             Radio Society of Great Britain

 

A                 amp (ampere)

AC               activity contest

AC               alternating current

ADC             analogue to digital converter

ADIF            Amateur Data Interchange Format

ADSL           asymmetric digital subscriber line

AF               audio frequency (about 20Hz to about 20kHz)

AFS             Affiliated Society (contest)

AGC             automatic gain control

AGL             above ground level

Ah               amp-hour (eg battery capacity)

ALC             automatic level control

ALE             automatic link establishment

AM              amplitude modulation

AMBE        Advanced Multi-Band Excitation

AMBE+    more advanced version of AMBE

AMTOR        amateur teleprinting over radio

AMU            antenna matching unit

AOTA          Airfields on the Air

APF             all pass filter

APRS           automatic packet reporting system

APSK           amplitude and phase shift keying

APT           automatic picture transmission

APT           Asia-Pacific Telecommunity

ARA            amateur radio association

ARC            amateur radio club

ARDF          amateur radio direction finding

AREDN         Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network

ARG            amateur radio group

ARI             Associazione Radioamatori Italiani (Italian national society)

ARISS         Amateur Radio on the International Space Station

AROS           Amateur Radio Observation Service (replaced by RSGB OAS)

ARRL           American Radio Relay League

ARS            amateur radio society

AS              aircraft scatter

ASCII          American Standard Code for Information Interchange

ASK            amplitude shift keying

ASL            above sea level

ASTU          antenna system tuning unit

ATA           AT attachment (now PATA (qv))

ATC            Air Training Corps

ATC            air traffic control

ATC            amateur transmitting club

ATNO        all-time new one

ATS             amateur transmitting society

ATT            attenuator (radio panel marking)

ATU            antenna tuning unit

ATV            amateur television

Az             azimuth

b                bit

B                byte

BARTG         British Amateur Radio Teledata Group

BATC          British Amateur Television Club

BC              broadcast

BCI             broadcast interference

BEAMA        British Electrotechnical and Allied Manufacturers’ Association

BERU           British Empire Radio Union (contest) (now known as the Commonwealth Contest)

BLM             Board liaison member

BM              balanced modulator or balanced mixer

BNC             Bayonet Neill-Concelman (connector)

BPF             band pass filter

BPSK           binary phase shift keying

BT               Bluetooth

BT               British Telecom

BVWS          British Vintage Wireless Society

BW             bandwidth

BWO           backward-wave oscillator

BWO           Bridge Wireless Office (eg aboard HMS Belfast)

C               Celsius (centigrade)

C               coulomb (unit of electric charge)

C&G            City and Guilds

CAN            controller area network (bus)

CAPEX         capital expenditure

CAR            carrier [level] (radio panel marking)

CASHOTA     Castles and Stately Homes on the Air

CAT            computer-assisted transceiver (or computer-aided)

CATV          Community Access Television (or Community Antenna Television) (cable TV)

CB              Citizen’s Band

CC              club contest

CC              Contest Committee

CCC            Commonwealth Century Club (operating award)

CDXC          Chiltern DX Club

CE              chip enable (control signal)

CEPT          European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations

CFL            compact fluorescent lamp

CHU           Canadian government standard time station on 3330, 7850 and 14670kHz

CIGRÉ       Conseil International des Grands Réseaux Électriques (Council for Large Electrical Systems)

CITEL        Comisión Interamericana de Telecomunicaciones (Inter-American Telecommunication Commission)

CLAR          clarifier (radio panel marking)

CLK            clock (control signal)

cm             centimetre (0.01m)

CMOS       complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor

Codec2      Family of audio vocoders created by VK5DGR, also the basis of FreeDV on HF

condx         condition(s)

CoTY          Club of the Year

cps            characters per second

cps            cycles per second (Hz) (deprecated)

CQWW        CQ worldwide (contest programme)

CRC            cyclic redundancy check

CRT            cathode ray tube

CSC            Contest Support Committee

CTCSS        continuous tone coded squelch system

CTS             clear to send

CV             curriculum vitae

c/w            complete with

CW            continuous wave (usually meaning Morse code)

DAC            digital to analogue converter

DARC          [and] district amateur radio club

DARC          Deutscher Amateur-Radio-Club (German national society)

DARS          [and] district amateur radio society

DATV          digital amateur television

dB              decibel

dBc            decibels relative to carrier

dBd            decibels relative to a dipole

dBFS         decibels relative to full scale

dBi             decibels relative to an isotropic radiator

dBm           decibels relative to one milliwatt

DBM           double-balanced mixer

dBW           decibels relative to one watt

DC             direct current

DCC           Data Communications Committee

DCS           digital coded squelch

DDS           direct digital synthesiser

DFIG         doubly fed induction generator

DIN            Deutsches Institut für Normung (German standards institute)

DMA          direct memory access

DMR           Digital Mobile Radio

DNR           digital noise reduction

DOCSIS      Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification

DORA        Directory Of Resources and Advice

dPMR        Digital Private Mobile Radio

DSB           double sideband

DSC           digital selective calling

DSB-SC       double sideband suppressed carrier

DSL           digital subscriber line

DSP            digital signal processing (or processor)

DSSC          dual sideband suppressed carrier

DSSS          direct sequence spread spectrum

D-Star         Digital Smart Technologies for Amateur Radio

DTL             diode-transistor logic

DTMF          dual tone multi frequency (Touch-Tone)

DUT             device under test

DV                 digital voice

DVB-S         digital video broadcasting – satellite

DVB-S2       digital video broadcasting – satellite, second generation

DVB-T         digital video broadcasting – terrestrial

DVB-T2       digital video broadcasting – satellite, second generation

DVSI         Digital Voice Systems Inc, USA-based creators of IMBE and AMBE

DX              long distance

DXCC          DX Century Club (award programme)

DXpedition   one or more amateurs going to an (usually infrequently activated) location to activate the square, country, island (or whatever) for a short time for the benefit of those wanting to work that place

e                base of the natural logarithm (2.71828…)

ECSS           exalted-carrier selectable-sideband (zero beat tuning to receive AM on SSB mode)

EDR           Experimenterende Danske Radioamatører (Danish national society)

EEPROM       electrically erasable programmable read-only memory

EG             Examinations Group

EIRP           effective isotropic radiated power

El              elevation

ele             [antenna] element(s)

ELF             extremely low frequency (300Hz to 3kHz)

EMC            electromagnetic compatibility

EME            earth-moon-earth (Moonbounce)

EMR            enhanced monitor request

EHF             extremely high frequency (30GHz to 300GHz)

EMP            electromagnetic pulse

ENA            enable

ENR           excess noise ratio

EPROM        erasable programmable read-only memory

EQAM         Examination Quality Assurance Manager

ERP            effective radiated power

Es              Sporadic-E (propagation)

ESC            Examination Standards Committee

ESM            Examinations Standards Manager

ETCC          Emerging Technology Co-ordination Committee

EU              European Union

EUDXF        European DX Foundation

EUT           equipment under test

EUV            extreme ultraviolet

EW             electronic warfare

EZNEC®      NEC-based antenna modelling software

F               farad

F               noise factor (note italic F)

f                frequency (general)

foF2           critical frequency (highest frequency returned by the F2 layer)

FAQ            frequently asked questions

FCC            Federal Communications Commission (USA regulator)

FDD            frequency division duplexing

FDM           frequency division multiplexing

FDIM          Four Days In May

FEC            forward error correction

FET            field-effect transistor

FFT             Fast Fourier Transform

FFTW          fastest Fourier Transform in the West

FH              frequency hopping

FIR             far infrared

FM             frequency modulation

FMAC         FM activity contest

FOSS          free open-source software

FP              floating point

FPGA         field programmable gate array

fps             feet per second

fps             frames per second

FPV          first person view (or video)

FS             full scale

FS             field strength

FSD           full scale deflection

FSK           frequency shift keying

FSTV         fast scan television

ft              foot (about 305mm) (or feet)

FTTP         fibre to the premises

FWHM        full width half maximum

G               giga (multiplier, x 1,000,000,000)

g               gram

GAREC        Global Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Conference

Gb             gigabit (conventionally 1,073,741,824 bits or 1024Mb)

GB             gigabyte (conventionally 1,073,741,824 bytes or 1024MB)

GC             good condition

GE             General Electric (business)

GEC           General Electric Company

GHz            gigahertz (thousand million cycles per second)

GIRO          Global Ionospheric Research Organisation

GLS            general lighting service

GM            General Manager (RSGB)

GM            group mode

GMDX         Scottish DX Association

GMRT         Scottish Microwave Round Table

GNSS          global navigation satellite system

GNU           GNU’s Not Unix! [sic – Ed]

GP             ground plane

GPIO          general purpose input / output

GPO           General Post Office

GPRS         general packet radio service

GPS           Global Positioning System

GSM          Global System for Mobile communications

GWO          good working order

H              henry

h              hour

HAAT         height above average terrain

HAREC        Harmonised Amateur Radio Examination Certificate

HD             high definition

HDTV         high definition television

HEVC         high efficiency video coding

HF             high frequency (3MHz to 30MHz)

HFC           HF Convention (now RSGB Convention)

HFC           hybrid fibre coaxial

HFCC          HF Contest Committee

hFE             bipolar transistor DC current gain

HPF            high pass filter

HPWPT       high power wireless power transfer

HS             heatsink

HVDC          high voltage direct current

Hz              hertz (cycles per second)

I                current (A)

I                in-phase component of a signal or magnitude

I/O             input / output

I/Q             in-phase and quadrature components of a signal

IC               integrated circuit

ICAS          intermittent commercial / amateur service

Ic               collector current

ICE            in-circuit emulation

Id               drain current

ID (or id)      inside diameter

IDE             integrated development environment

IDE             integrated drive electronics

ISB             independent sideband

I2C             inter integrated circuit (digital communication)

IARP           International Amateur Radio Permit

IARU           International Amateur Radio Union

ICNIRP         International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection

IF               intermediate frequency

IGBT           insulated-gate bipolar ransistor

ILLW           International Lighthouses and Lightships Week(end)

IMBE        Improved Multi-Band Excitation

IMD             intermodulation distortion

in                inch (about 25.4mm)

IOTA           Islands On The Air (awards programme and contest)

IP3             third-order intercept

IPO             intercept point optimisation

IR               infrared

IRC             international reply coupon

IRC             internet relay chat

IRLP            Internet Radio Linking Project

IRQ              interrupt request

ISB              independent sideband

ISBN            international standard book number

ISCAT          ionospheric scattering

ISM            Industrial, Scientific and Medical

ISP             internet service provider

ISS             International Space Station

ITU             International Telecommunications Union

ITS             Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (USA)

J                 joule

JARL            Japan Amateur Radio League

JFET            junction field effect transistor

JOTA           Jamboree on the Air

JPL               Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA)

JTAG            Joint Test Action Group

JTDX           [K1]JT modes for DXing

K                kelvin (NB: never °K)

K                (Morse) invitation to transmit

k                 kilo (multiplier, x 1,000)

kb               kilobit  (conventionally 1024 bits)

kB               kilobyte (conventionally 1024 bytes)

kc/s             kilocycles per second (kilohertz) (deprecated)

kg               kilogram (1000g)

kHz             kilohertz (thousand cycles per second)

km              kilometre

ksps            kilosymbols per second

kW              kilowatt

kWh            kilowatt-hour (3,600,000 joules)

LAN             local area network

lb                pound

LCD             liquid crystal display

LDO             low dropout

LDPC           low density parity check

LED             light-emitting diode

LF               low frequency (30kHz to 300kHz)

LHS              left hand side

LISN            line impedance stabilisation network

LiFePO4        lithium iron phosphate (battery technology)

Li-ion           lithium-ion (battery technology)

LiPo            (also Li-Po) lithium-polymer (battery technology)

LNA           low noise amplifier

LNTA         low noise transconductance amplifier

LO              local oscillator

LotW           Logbook of the World

LP               log periodic

LPF             low pass filter

LSB             least significant bit

LSB             lower sideband

LVD             Low Voltage Directive

LVDS           low voltage differential signalling

LW             long wave (about 150kHz to 300kHz)

LWIR           long wavelength infrared

M               mega (multiplier, x 1,000,000)

m               metre

M17           an open source DV mode

mA             milliamp (0.001A, 1000µA)

mAh           milliamp-hour (eg battery capacity)

MARC         Marconi Amateur Radio Circle (Malta)

MARL          Malta Amateur Radio League

Mb              megabit (conventionally 1048576 bits or 1024kb)

MB              megabyte (conventionally 1048576 bytes or 1024kB)

MC              master of ceremonies

Mc/s           megacycles per second (megahertz) (deprecated)

MER            modulation error rate

MF             medium frequency (300kHz to 3MHz)

MFSK          multiple frequency shift keying

MGM           machine-generated mode

MHz            megahertz (million cycles per second)

MIMO        multiple input multiple output

MLS           maximum (or maximal) length sequence

ML&S          Martin Lynch & Sons (retailer)

mm             millimetre (0.001m)

MMDVM          Multi-Mode Digital Voice Modem

MO             multiple operator

MoD            Ministry of Defence

MOSFET      metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor

MOTA          Museums on the Air

MOTA          Mills on the Air

MPEG          Moving Picture Experts Group

MR              moonrise

MS              meteor scatter

MS              moonset

MSF            UK NPL standard time service broadcast on 60kHz

MSHV          meteor scatter [software by LZ2]HV

MSK            minimum-shift keying

Msps           megasymbols per second

MSB            most significant bit

MTBF        mean time before failure

MUF            maximum usable frequency

mult            multiplier (contesting)

MW            medium wave (roughly 525-1600kHz)

MW            megawatt

MWIR          medium wavelength infrared

n               nano (multiplier, x 0.000,000,001)

NAND         not-AND (logic function)

NASA          National Aeronautics and Space Administration (USA)

NB             noise blanker

NB             nota bene (note well, take note of)

NDB           non-directional beacon

NEC           Numerical Electromagnetics Code

NEC           National Exhibition Centre

NF             noise figure

NF             noise floor

NFD            National Field Day

NMEA          National Marine Electronics Association (USA)

NOAA          National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (USA)

NOR           not-OR (logic function)

NiCd           nickel-cadmium (battery technology)

NiFe           nickel-ion (battery technology)

NiMH          nickle-metal hydride (battery technology)

NIR            near infrared

nm             nanometre (1×10-9m)

NMOS        N-type metal-oxide-semiconductor

NPL            National Physical Laboratory (UK)

NRC            National Radio Centre

NRRL           Norsk Radio Relæ Liga (Norwegian national society)

NSD             noise spectral density

NTP           network time protocol

NTSC           National Television Standards Committee (USA)

NVIS           near vertical incidence skywave

NXDN         DV mode created by Icom and Kenwood

Nyquist         (also Nyquist rate or Nyquist Frequency) refers to sampling rates; see links for details

NZART         New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters

OAS            (RSGB) Operating Advisory Service

OBO            on behalf of

OBO            or best offer

OCXO          oven controlled crystal oscillator

OCFD          off-centre fed dipole

OD (or od)   outside diameter

ODX             longest distance (best DX)

OEM             original equipment manufacturer

OIRO            offer(s) in the region of

OLED            organic light-emitting diode

ONO             or near offer

OOK             on-off keying

OPEX            operational expenditure

OQPSK          offset quadrature phase-shift keying

OQRS           online QSL request

osc              oscillator

OTA             on the air

OVNO           or very near offer

oz                ounce, about 28.3g

p                 pico (multiplier, x 0.000,000,000,001)

P25 Phase 1   Project 25 Phase 1, an early DV mode used by public services in the USA

P25 Phase 2   Project 25 phase 2, similar to Phase 1 in usage but is a TDMA system

PA               power amplifier

PAE           power added efficiency

PAL              phase alternating line (analogue TV colour encoding system)

PATA          parallel ATA, an interface standard for disk drives

PBT              passband tuning

PC                personal computer

PCM             pulse code modulation

PD               potential difference

PD               product detector (frequency mixing demodulator for AM and SSB)

PE              protective earth (note that requirements vary between and even inside jurisdictions)

pk               peak

pk-pk          peak to peak

PLC             powerline communication (eg domestic internet extenders that run signals through existing mains wiring)

PLL             phase-locked loop

PM              phase modulation

PMG            Postmaster General

PMOS         P-type metal-oxide-semiconductor

PMR            private (or professional) mobile radio

PN              phase noise

POTS           plain old telephone system (or service)

PPR            pulses per revolution

PPR            prior permission required

PPI              plan position indicator

PPI              pulse pause initiator

PRNG           pseudo-random noise generator

PROM           programmable read-only memory

pp              peak to peak

p-p             peak to peak

P&P             packing and postage

PPM            pulse position modulation

PSK            phase shift keying

PSTN          public switched telephone network

PTT            push to talk

PV              photovoltaic

PVC             polyvinyl chloride

PW             Practical Wireless

PZK            Polski Zwiazek Krótkofalowców (Polish national society)

Q               quadrature component of a signal or magnitude

Q               quality factor

QAM            quadrature amplitude modulation

QP              quasi-peak (detector for EMC measurements)

QPSK          quadrature phase shift keying

QRA            callsign

QRA            Q-ary repeat-accumulate

QRM            interference from artificial sources

QRN            interference from natural sources

QRO            high power

QRP            low power (usually <5W)

QRPp          very low power (often well under 1W)

QRS            please send slower

QRS            slow Morse code

QRSs          extremely slow Morse code (seconds to hours per dit)

QRT            cease operating

QRV            (ready to) operate

QRX            wait

QRZ            who is calling me?

QSB            fading

QSK            listening (or interrupting) between transmissions

QSL             confirmation of contact

QSO            communication

QST             general call to all stations (also,

QST             ARRL monthly magazine for members

QSX             I am listening on [frequency]

QSY             change frequency

QTH             position (eg address)

QTHR           ‘registered’ position (eg, address as listed in callbook)

Qu               unloaded quality factor

QUCS           Quite Universal Circuit Simulator

RA              Radiocommunications Agency (superseded by Ofcom in 2003)

RAC             Radio Amateurs of Canada

RadCom        RSGB monthly magazine for Members

RAF             RadioAmateurs France (Société nationale française)

RAF             Royal Air Force

RAFARS         Royal Air Force Amateur Radio Society

RAOTA          Radio Amateurs Old Timers’ Association

R&TTE           Radio Equipment and Telecommunications Terminal Equipment

RAYNET        UK Radio Amateurs’ Emergency Network

RBN              reverse beacon network

RBTV            reduced bandwidth television

RC               radio club

RC               resistor-capacitor (network, time constant etc)

RCF             Radio Communications Foundation

RDRc           Russian Digital Radioamateur Club

RED             Radio Equipment Directive

REF              Réseau des Émetteurs Français (French national society)

REIN            repetitive electrical impulse noise

REP              Rede dos Emissores Portugueses (Portuguese national society)

RF               radio frequency

RFI              radio frequency interference

RHS             right hand side

RIT              receiver incremental tuning

RL               return loss

RMDR           reciprocal mixing dynamic range

RMS            root mean square

RNAS          Royal Naval Air Station

RNLI            Royal National Lifeboat Institution

ROA            Radio Officers’ Association

RoLo            Rolling Locators (contest)

ROM            read-only memory

RP              reverse polarity (eg RP-SMA)

RS              readability, signal

RS              register slect

RSARS         Royal Signals Amateur Radio Society

RSGB           Radio Society of Great Britain

RST            readability, signal, tone

RTL           resistor-transistor logic

RTO           regional telecommunication organisation

RTS           request to send

RTTY          radio teletype

RW           read / write

R/W          read / write

Rx              receive (or receiver)

s                second

S                siemens (unit of conductance)

S&P            search and pounce

SAW          surface acoustic wave

SCART        Syndicat des Constructeurs d’Appareils Radiorécepteurs et Téléviseurs (French Radio and Television Receiver Manufacturers’ Association)

SCC           special contest callsign

SCL           serial clock (I2C)

SD             Secure Digital

SD             standard definition

SDA           serial data (I2C)

SDR            software defined radio

SECAM        Séquentiel couleur à mémoire

SFDR          spurious-free dynamic range

SFI             solar flux index

SHF            super high frequency (3GHz to 30GHz)

SI              Système international (d’unités) (international system of units)

sic              sic erat scriptum, “thus was it written” (meaning “this is an exact quotation, not a transcription error”)

SISO         single input single output

SK              silent key (the person is dead)

sked           scheduled contact (eg Alice calls Bob every Monday at 2pm on 145.450MHz)

SLALIB        Subprogram Library A

SMA           sub miniature version A connector

SMB           sub miniature version B connector

SMC           sub miniature version C connector

SMD           surface mount device

SMT           surface mount technology

S/N            signal to noise (ratio)

S/N            serial number

SNR            signal to noise ratio

SO             single operator

SO2R          single operator two radios

SO2V          single operator two VFOs

SOTA          Summits on the Air (awards programme)

SPI             serial peripheral interface

SR              symbol rate

SS              spread spectrum

SSB            single sideband

SSN            smoothed sunspot number

SSPA          solid state power amplifier

SSTV          slow scan television

STARS        Support to the Amateur Radio Service (IARU programme)

STEM          science, technology, engineering and mathematics

STL            small transmitting loop

SW             short wave (roughly 2-30MHz)

SWL            short wave listener

SWR            standing wave ratio

T                tera (multiplier, x 1,000,000,000,000)

T                turns (on an inductor)

TCXO          temperature compensated crystal oscillator

TD              time division

TDD             time division duplexing

TDM            time division multiplexing

TEC            Training and Education Committee

TEC            total electron content (propagation)

TL              transmission line

TLA            three-letter acronym (or abbreviation)

TNC            threaded Neill-Concelman (connector)

TNC            terminal node controller

TOR            teleprinter over radio

TOR            The Onion Router (internet anonymity network)

TRF           tuned radio frequency

tropo          tropospheric propagation

TRRG         Tenby Radio Repeater Group

TS              transport stream

TTL           transistor-transistor logic

TV              television

TWG          technical working group

Tx              transmit (or transmitter)

µ                 micro (multiplier, x 0.000,001)

µA               microamp (0.000,001A)

UBA             Royal Union of Belgian Radio Amateurs

UBN            Unique, Busted or Not-in-the-log (contesting)

UHF             ultra high frequency (300MHz to 3GHz)

UK               United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

UK&CD         United Kingdom [of Great Britain and Northern Ireland] and Crown Dependencies

UKAC           UK Activity Contest

UKSMG        United Kingdom Six Metre Group

UKuG           United Kingdom Microwave Group

uPVC          unplasticised polyvinyl chloride

URE            Unión de Radioaficionados Españoles (Spanish national society)

URL            uniform resource locator

US              United States

USA            United States of America

USB            Universal Serial Bus

USB            upper sideband

UTC            Temps Universel Coordonné (Coordinated Universal Time)

V                volt (unit for electric potential)

VCO            voltage controlled oscillator

VCXO        voltage controlled crystal oscillator

VDSL          very high bit-rate digital subscriber line

VERON        Vereniging voor Experimenteel Radio Onderzoek Nederland (Dutch national society)

VFO            variable frequency oscillator

VGC            very good condition

VHF             very high frequency (30MHz to 300MHz)

VHFCC         RSGB VHF Contest Committee

VLF             very low frequency (3kHz to 30kHz)

VLNA            very low noise amplifier

VNA            vector network analyser

VOACAP       Voice of America Coverage Analysis Program

VoIP            voice over internet protocol

VOX            voice operated switch

VPL            visual programming language

Vs               supply voltage

VSWR          voltage standing wave ratio

VXO            variable crystal oscillator

W               watt (SI unit of power)

WAB           Worked All Britain (awards programme)

WAC           Worked All Continents (award programme)

WAS           Worked All States (awards programme)

WARC          World Administrative Radio Congress (or Conference)

WAZ            Worked All Zones (award programme)

WDM           wavelength division multiplexing

WHY           what have you? (what do you have [to offer])

Wi-Fi           type of wireless networking

WIA            Wireless Institute of Australia

WKD           (or wkd) worked

WLAN          wireless local area network

WPM           words per minute

WPS           Wi-Fi Protected Setup

WPT           wireless power transfer

WRC           World Radiocommunication Conference

WRPSA        World Radio Propagation Study Association

W&S           Waters and Stanton (retailer)

WSPR         Weak Signal Propagation Reporter

WWV          US Government standard frequency and time station on 2.5, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25MHz

WX            weather

X               (electrical) impedance (also, Z)

xcvr           transceiver

XFC           transmit frequency check

XIT            transmit incremental tuning

xmtr           transmitter

XOR            exclusive-OR (logic)

xtal            crystal

XTLA        eXtended  three-letter acronym (or abbreviation) (ie four letters)

XYL            ex YL (wife)

yd              yard (3 feet, or about 0.914m)

YL              young lady

YMMV      your mileage may vary (ie, the results you get may be different from the results given as an example)

YOTA         Youth on the Air

Z               (electrical) impedance (also, X)

ZHR            zenithal hourly rate (of meteors)

Zo             characteristic impedance

 

 

GB2RS Local News and RadCom Club Calendar conventions

Club net       Members of a club having a turns-based conversation under a Net Controller

Club night     General, un-themed meeting at normal club meeting-place

On the air     Club members operating the club radio equipment, normally on club premises unless specified otherwise

Open net      Open to all turns-based conversation under a Net Controller

Radio night   Club members operating the club radio equipment, normally on club premises

 

 

 

 

Final note: the ‘right’ way to express a figure and a unit puts a space between them, eg length of eight and a half metres should be written as 8.5 m. However, RadCom does not include a space, partly for typesetting reasons, so we would print it as 8.5m. We know we’re wrong – but at least we are consistently wrong.