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| Science Forum Index » Space - Shuttle Forum » arse, erm Ares sorry..... |
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| Brian Gaff... |
 Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 3:16 am |
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Guest
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They really need to be more careful with the names of their vehicles.
On a completely off topic slant on this. The US ham radio prefixes all
start with one of the following letters.
W, A, N, or K it seems.
Strange that.
Ducks behind potted plant to avoid cracked GW bush mug thrown at speed.
Brian
--
Brian Gaff - briang1 at (no spam) blueyonder.co.uk
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please! |
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| Joseph Nebus... |
| Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 7:55 am |
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Guest
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"Brian Gaff" <briang1 at (no spam) blueyonder.co.uk> writes:
[quote]On a completely off topic slant on this. The US ham radio prefixes all
start with one of the following letters.
W, A, N, or K it seems.
Strange that.
[/quote]
It seems? No, that's how the prefixes are assigned, with the
United States getting AA through AL, NA through NL, and the whole W and
K prefixes. Why *these* letters is a mystery --- I've never seen any
clear explanation for how the prefixes were originally assigned --- but
there are quite a few which seem to suggest meaning: G was assigned as
prefix to Great Britain; Canada gets much of the C range, Germany the
D's, France the F's, Italy 'I', Switzerland 'H', Spain 'E', Japan 'J'
(and of course it's grown much more complicated since then). But these
seem to just be giving big nations the first letter of the nation's name
(in the home language), or at least one of the nation's names.
At a guess, giving America A, in that case, is a pretty natural
thing to do. And then a reasonably satisfactory hypothesis becomes
almost irresistible and wanting just actual documentation: Morse for 'A'
is di-dah; 'N' is dah-dit. Natural pairing. And, even better, since
'W' is di-dah-dah and 'K' is dah-di-dah, this otherwise quirky assignment
of letters makes what looks like sense suddenly.
The real mystery is not quite why the United States decided to
allocate the letters K and W to commercial stations based on a geographic
distribution, then (why not a system as long as one can be devised?) but
rather why they decided (with a few exceptions) to put the 'W' stations
in the East and 'K' in the *W*est.
--
Joseph Nebus
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| André, PE1PQX... |
| Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 8:35 am |
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Guest
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Joseph Nebus gebruikte zijn klavier om te schrijven :
[quote]"Brian Gaff" <briang1 at (no spam) blueyonder.co.uk> writes:
On a completely off topic slant on this. The US ham radio prefixes all
start with one of the following letters.
W, A, N, or K it seems.
Strange that.
It seems? No, that's how the prefixes are assigned, with the
United States getting AA through AL, NA through NL, and the whole W and
K prefixes. Why *these* letters is a mystery --- I've never seen any
clear explanation for how the prefixes were originally assigned --- but
there are quite a few which seem to suggest meaning: G was assigned as
prefix to Great Britain; Canada gets much of the C range, Germany the
D's, France the F's, Italy 'I', Switzerland 'H', Spain 'E', Japan 'J'
(and of course it's grown much more complicated since then). But these
seem to just be giving big nations the first letter of the nation's name
(in the home language), or at least one of the nation's names.
[/quote]
Not entirely true:
The Netherlands has PA-PI
Belgium ON-OT.
Greece: SV
Sweden: SM
Denmark: OK
Canada: VK
Poland: SP
Hungay: HA
Switserland has HB range
France has besides the 'F' prefix also a 'TM' prefix.
UK: Also 'M', since the 'G' prefixes are all issued a.f.a.i.k.
I suggest to have a look in this document:
http://www.arrl.org/awards/dxcc/itucalls.html
cheers,
André PE1PQX (Ham radio operator) |
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| Anthony Frost... |
| Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 2:45 am |
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Guest
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In message <CLcGm.2790$5w5.237 at (no spam) text.news.virginmedia.com>
"Brian Gaff" <briang1 at (no spam) blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
[quote]I think my point on the US call letters was what it spelled, and I wondered
if this showed some underlying intention to poke fun at the US.
[/quote]
On the poking fun angle, I do hope this was real and even deliberate...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/28/acrostic_arnie/
Anthony |
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| Brian Gaff... |
| Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 2:54 am |
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Guest
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Erm, now the uk has M which is totally daft. We also have 2E 2W 2D 2U 2M etc
as well.
I think my point on the US call letters was what it spelled, and I wondered
if this showed some underlying intention to poke fun at the US.
Brian
--
Brian Gaff - briang1 at (no spam) blueyonder.co.uk
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Joseph Nebus" <nebusj- at (no spam) -rpi-.edu> wrote in message
news:nebusj.1256737552 at (no spam) vcmr-86.server.rpi.edu...
[quote]"Brian Gaff" <briang1 at (no spam) blueyonder.co.uk> writes:
On a completely off topic slant on this. The US ham radio prefixes all
start with one of the following letters.
W, A, N, or K it seems.
Strange that.
It seems? No, that's how the prefixes are assigned, with the
United States getting AA through AL, NA through NL, and the whole W and
K prefixes. Why *these* letters is a mystery --- I've never seen any
clear explanation for how the prefixes were originally assigned --- but
there are quite a few which seem to suggest meaning: G was assigned as
prefix to Great Britain; Canada gets much of the C range, Germany the
D's, France the F's, Italy 'I', Switzerland 'H', Spain 'E', Japan 'J'
(and of course it's grown much more complicated since then). But these
seem to just be giving big nations the first letter of the nation's name
(in the home language), or at least one of the nation's names.
At a guess, giving America A, in that case, is a pretty natural
thing to do. And then a reasonably satisfactory hypothesis becomes
almost irresistible and wanting just actual documentation: Morse for 'A'
is di-dah; 'N' is dah-dit. Natural pairing. And, even better, since
'W' is di-dah-dah and 'K' is dah-di-dah, this otherwise quirky assignment
of letters makes what looks like sense suddenly.
The real mystery is not quite why the United States decided to
allocate the letters K and W to commercial stations based on a geographic
distribution, then (why not a system as long as one can be devised?) but
rather why they decided (with a few exceptions) to put the 'W' stations
in the East and 'K' in the *W*est.
--
Joseph Nebus
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