[CW] Obsolete Prosigns

[Darrel]

I already posted this to the [SKCC] group, so apologies for posting here 
too.  I thought it might be of particular interest to this group.

I've seen queries about the prosign "VE"  (or equally "SN") come up from 
time to time.  Now, ""VE" means in all contexts "Understood", but it 
wasn't always that way everywhere.  Very occasionally, an old timer can 
be heard lapsing into this earlier usage.


See "Obsolete Morse Code Prosigns" on 
https://wiki2.org/en/Prosigns_for_Morse_code#cite_note-:4-25 There's a 
reference to "1937 Royal Navy Signal Card". *"VE General call . . . _ . 
Code re-used for "Message verified" or "Message understood" (see SN 
above). "* If you follow the links to that references given on that Wiki 
page, there's a photo of the 1937 Royal Canadian Signal Card with VE 
defined as above, and also to the Royal Navy Signal Card, with a similar 
definition of VE as a "General Call". When I grew up using Morse, in the 
early 1960s, I suspect there were many ex-Royal Navy (and ex British 
Army) operators on the ham bands, who used the prosigns they had been 
taught. Hence, I grew up with "VE" meaning "General Call". I don't think 
either the Royal Navy or the Royal Canadian Navy felt particularly bound 
at the time by any commercial handbook or agreed international 
definition. I also found a reference to "VE" meaning "General Call" in 
an old Boy Scouts manual. I'm guessing that may date from Baden Powell 
and the Boer War. As this Wiki page says, these are "Obsolete Morse Code 
Prosigns", even though they were in common usage on one side of the 
Atlantic at one time. I do try to resist using them now, although not 
always successfully. Just for possible historical interest. Cheers, 
Darrel, aa7fv & g3sys.



 From https://wiki2.org/en/Prosigns_for_Morse_code


>From 
https://hatchfive.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/e676af9a-0708-4c10-bbe1-fce8667ea652.jpg
The 1937 Royal Navy Signal Card



 From the 1937 Royal Canadian Navy Signal Card
http://www.forposterityssake.ca/RCN-DOCS/SIGNAL_CARD_1937.htm
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