A brief discussion of abbreviations [From the Editor]

Abstract

Abbreviations are a wonderful invention. They help us to say a lot in a very little space. This was very important in the early development of wireless communication, where Morse code was the radio operator's character set. Long words and phrases required relatively long periods of time to be transmitted using this rather slow, narrow bandwidth communications method. To try to correct this problem, radio operators devised and borrowed from telegraph operators standard abbreviations such as the Q code to represent common phrases. For example, QTH referred to the radio operator's location, QRM was radio interference, and QSL meant please acknowledge receipt of this message.