[CW] QRL? Or the old American "C" Are you busy?

[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

The old procedure of sending American Morse "C" was excellent on commercial
circuits but even there the original convention wasn't usually followed.
The people who followed the correct procedure were probably under 5%. Many
now use QRL? which probably is better and much less confusing.

The original procedure was to send American Morse "C" so no doubt this
procedure goes back 100 years to the 19-teens and 1920's when ships and
coastal stations in USA were required to use American Morse with USA ships.

The official answer to American Morse "C" which sounds like "IE" in
International Morse was:

E - Frequency is busy, standby.
I - Frequency is not in use, you may use it.

This is still heard when KPH sends its Traffic List on 500 kHz each
Saturday.

IE (pause) CQ CQ CQ DE KPH KPH KPH TFC LIST QSW 426 AND HF =

Yes, at that time, a radio telegraph license issued by the USA Department
of Commerce were examined in receiving and sending American and Continental
(International) Morse, and a technical radio examination (practical).
(Commerce Department preceded both Federal Radio Commission (FRC) and
Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Both American and International Morse Code had unusual features: American
Morse had two types of interelement (between dots and/or dashes) and three
lengths of dashes, 3 units long as for "T" and all other characters except
for "L" and figure "0", 7 units long for "L" and 10 units long for figure
"0.) But most people don't know that International Morse had some strange
spacings! The International symbol for "full stop" or "period" was "I I I"
which we would copy correctly as III. But in the 1930s it was period!
Donald de Neuf. President of Press Wireless Company (competitor of Western
Union that used point to point radiotelegraphy instead of wires) who tells
of receiving a message sent to Choisi Japan Radio, JCS when the ship sent a
message addressed to an address in N.Y. and the Japanese operator copied
"NEW YORK NIII YIII" " All telegrams were all capitals. Western Union
couldn't figure out the address, so they sent it to Press Wireless whose
radiotelegraphers understood the problem!

International Morse had an exclamation point also which was
"dahdahdididahdah" which today we'd copy correctly as comma. However in
those early days, it was exclamation point.

When "Radio Amateurs Callbook" was published, they featured a page of
abbreviations, two continued to puzzle me.

73 - "Best Regards"
88 - "Love and Kisses"
99 - "Keep out" - Rare

And this one:
Dah-dah-di-di-dah-dah "Warning - High Power"

The last made no sense until I learned that ship radio officers in the days
of spark and crystal detectors used American Morse, and this signal was
"exclamation point" and that previous to putting the spark set on full high
power which would hurt the ears of the operators on nearby ships.

It simply meant what it said: Warning! HIGH POWER is about to be used,
protect your ears!

It took me twenty years to figure that out, but one ancient Sparks told me
that I got the right meaning,

73

David N1EA
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