#prosigns

Have I mentioned that the General Ham License Manual has a ton more information than the Technician manual?  If I haven't already, it's true.  It's awesome.

So it's a lot of work to spell out the full text of all words and phrases, so telegraphers developed an extensive set of abbreviations and procedural signals called prosigns.  These are two letters sent together as a single character as indicated by an overbar.   So the prosign  AR  is used to indicated "End of Message".

And then there are abbreviations to shorten common words such as "AND" is "ES" and "GOING" is "GG" and "WEATHER" is "WX".

Calling CQ on CW is about the same as on phone/voice.  "DE" is an abbreviation used in place of "form" and the procedural signal K replaces "over":

CQ CQ CQ DE W0TTV W0TTV W0TTV K

A response might look like the following:

W0TTV DE W1AW W1AW W1AW K

There's no need to send the CQing station's call more than once unless there's interferences or the signal is weak.  When signals are strong and clear, those responding to CQ may even just send their call once or twice.

Good idea is also to respond at the speed of the calling station but if you're uncomfortable receiving at that speed, send the Q signal "QRS" (send slower) before the final K.  Or if you want to go faster, QRQ.

Also adjust your transmitting frequency so that your signals is "zero beat" with the other signal so that you will be on the same frequency.  This means the two signals produce the same audio tone in a receiver.  Check the radio's operating manual for instructions on how to zero beat another signal.

And once you're in contact with another station, the prosign KN is used instead of K to prevent other stations from breaking in during the contact.  It means "Only the station with whom I am in contact should respond".  When asked if you are ready to receive, "QRV" means "I'm ready to copy."  After receiving the message, "QSL" means  "I acknowledge receipt."

Then when it's time to end the QSO, the prosign SK is used to let any listener know that the contact is completed: W1AW DE W0TTV SK and if you're going off the air, add CL for closing station.

Phew!