[CW] Obsolete Prosigns

[Darrel]

  A follow up on the historical use of the prosign <VE> as a 
"Preliminary call".  I recently acquired an original "Signal Card" 
document  from the Royal Navy, dated 1944.

The front cover has: "R.B.232" and "SIGNAL CARD 1944".  The back cover 
has "H.M.S. STATIONERY OFFICE   PRICE 9P NET".  I believe it was 
primarily for the British Navy; the first 3 plates, which are all about 
flags, include the words "NAVAL SIGNALLING" .

Plates V and VI show Morse code.  On Plate VI it includes, under "PROSIGNS":



or "...-.  ...-.  <VE> GENERAL CALL" .

This is the latest official document I've come across giving this 
meaning for <VE>, but I'm sure there must be others.

                Cheers,
                           Darrel, aa7fv.



> ...
>
> On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 6:51 PM Darrel <demerson2718 at gmail.com 
> <mailto:demerson2718 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     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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