CW Geek’s No-Nonsense Guide to Having Fun With Morse Code: Prosigns

Yet another chapter from my soon-to-be-released CW Geek’s Guide to Having Fun With Morse Code.

Prosigns are combinations of characters (although a couple are just a single character) that signify that a particular point in a contact has been reached or that call for an action by the receiving operator. Although the prosigns are written below as two separate characters, you should sending them in a single sequence. For example, the prosign AR should be sent as di-dah-di-dah-dit.

AR

End of message. You would send AR when you’re done sending a message and are ready to turn it over to the other operator. AR is sent before you send callsigns. For example, at the end of your first transmission, you might send:….HW? AR W8ABC DE KB6NU KIn practice, however, this is rarely done, but you will hear it from time to time.

AS

Stand by. You would send AS if you want the other station to stand by for a short time while you tweak your antenna tuner or perhaps make a note in your log.

BK

Break. Send BK when you want the other station to start transmitting without going through the station identification process. Feel free to make liberal use of this prosign. Remember that you really only have to identify your station once every ten minutes. You also use BK when beginning a transmission that’s responding to an invitation to break in.

CL

Closing. This signifies that you are going to be going off the air. You send CL at the end of the station ID on your very last transmission of a QSO. For example:…73 ES GN SK W8ABC DE KB6NU CL

K, KN

Go ahead. You send either K or KN after identifying your station to invite the other station to start transmitting. If you are open to allowing other stations to join your conversation, send K. If you want only the station you are currently in contact with to go ahead, send KN.

R

All received OK. Use this prosign near the beginning of your transmission to signify that you received what was sent. I usually take this to mean that the other station copied my transmission solidly, or in other words, copied every single character.

SK

End of message. SK is similar to AR, but means that this will be the last transmission of a contact.

VE

Understood. This prosign is not used often, but you do hear it occasionally.