[Milsurplus] CW "de" ?

[Mike Morrow]

Hue wrote:

> So this from "Digest of Naval Communications 1928", p 75:
>
> " (a) The Call, which consists of the call(s) of the station(s) called (in alphabetical
>   order) followed by "V" ( from ) and the call sign of the station calling." 
>
> only applies to the written message form, or?

I have no idea what that out-of-context excerpt means.  I'm sure that V was **never** used as "this is" in radiotelegraph communications.

> Your example uses ham-type callsigns, so i could question that as evidence for the
> non-ham sphere.

I have the honor of stating that you would be questioning wholly without basis then.  I would be unimaginative and ignorant, were ham calls the only ones I could imagine because I did not know what military or commercial station calls looked like.  :-)

Before 1975, US Navy Reserve Center stations (and possibly others) used calls beginning with N, followed by the naval district number (usually), followed by three letters.  Navy-Marine Corps MARS stations used the same format, but with "0" as the numeral.  I used these as examples of station calls that were definitely military, with formats that agreed with ITU letter assignments for the USA.  After 1975, these 1x3 N calls were all turned over to the FCC for use afterwards...and ONLY afterwards...as ham calls.  Note that I explicitly cited 1975 in my previous post, just in case a reader was unfamiliar with that history.

Likewise, in the commercial merchant marine examples I gave, there are NO ham calls.  One might be excused for thinking, however, that there are broadcast station calls in my examples.  It is an ancient oddity that US maritime radiotelegraph coast station, ship station, and commercial broadcast station calls all came from three-letter and four-letter all-alphabetic combinations.  (Non-military aircraft stations before WWII were assigned calls of five alphabetic characters, like the famous Earhart KHAQQ.)  Also, maritime ship station calls of some countries looked like ham calls, like the Liberian D5xx calls I used in my examples.

Forgive me if I discount the assertion that my examples used ham calls...apparently all that was necessary to make my report questionable. :-)

> However, i did consult "Marine Radio Manual", Strachwitz, 1943, and so it's yes,
> "DE" is the marine radio "from". 

Or "this is".  And for all radiotelegraph practice, not just maritime Morse.  It goes back long long long before 1943.  You'll find examples of DE in the traffic associated with the sinking of RMS Titanic in April 1912.  See:

http://www.hf.ro/#trd

The FCC Second Class Radiotelegraph License, safety training, medical certification for SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) duty, plus proof of a ship billet were required to obtain a USCG-issued Radio Officer license.  The FCC Radiotelegraph license required knowledge of commercial radiotelegraph operating practice that was essentially unchanged from the 1920s or earlier to the end of commercial radiotelegraph operations on July 12, 1999.

After leaving USN active duty, I seriously considered going into that line of work for a while because I had the Second Class Radiotelegraph license and I was one of the few folks in the USN who had actually loved being at sea.  But a permanent medical condition developed not long after leaving the USN that disqualified me for SOLAS duty.  I had to find work with my EE degree.

Mike / KK5F

>-----Original Message-----
>Sent: Saturday, June 4, 2016 4:52 PM
>
>Hue asked:
>
>> Why did ham radio adopt the C.W. signal  “de” instead of the “v” used 
>> by the commercial services and the military?
>
>That is an incorrect premise.  DE and V have no relationship and therefore no equivalence, nor were there significant differences in usage between services.
>
>The military and commercial radiotelegraph services always used DE as the hams have.  DE simply means "this is".  For example, before 1975 communications between Sixth Naval District Naval Reserve Center station N6ABC with a similar station in the Eighth Naval District might go:
>
>N8XYZ DE N6ABC ZKE QRU K
>
>The use V by a station has no special meaning, certainly not "this is".  It was used by commercial maritime coast stations as a filler in place of specific station call signs in generally-directed continuously running radio calls like this very typical example:
>
>VVV VVV VVV DE WCC WCC WCC AMVERS QSX 4 8 16 22 K
>
>which means Chatham MA coast station WCC is listening on its assigned frequencies in the 4, 8, 16, 22 MHz maritime Morse bands for Atlantic Merchant Vessel Emergency Reporting System reports and other incoming ship traffic.
>
>Or another common continuously running transmission like this:
>
>VVV VVV VVV DE WLO WLO WLO QTC D5LA D5MN HPLL HPVE KANW KKHF (list of ship call signs) QSX 4 8 12 468 K
>
>which means New Orleans LA coast station WLO has traffic for ship stations listed and is listening on its assigned frequencies in the 4, 8, 12 MHz maritime Morse bands and on 468 kHz.
>
>The use of DE to break the other stations transmission was common commercial practice.
>
>One small thing I liked about commercial practice was the universal use of TU instead of that awkward ham TNX.
>
>Mike / KK5F
>Second Class Radiotelegraph License with Ship Radar Endorsement, almost 40 years ago.