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Sparkies' secret language.

12K views 68 replies 34 participants last post by  Worldspan 
#1 ·
We have a fair number of sparkies and ex-sparkies on the site, and from time to time, they lapse into their esoteric alphabetic codes. I'm sure there's no sinister intent in this, so would it be considered intrusive to ask for a list of commonly-used codes to be posted to enable the rest of us to follow the thread. Or am I just being a nosy bugger?
 
#32 ·
Just had to add that Where Q codes were used in maritime, aircraft, military and ham, usage there were also Z codes for use in high speed (Up to 300 wpm morse commercial point to point circuits) such as ZST meaning, send your slips twice (messages were punched in tapes called slips )and a five letter code with words such as "Dadro" each of which meant a specific message, Back when I was at sea one could send dah dah dih dih dah dah which was a comma but if you lengthed the dahs to daaaaah daaaah dih did daaaah daaaaah it meant, "you bloody fool"

As you can see it all quite simple, surprised you asked regards chas (Pint)
 
#10 ·
Q Codes

What about that ever-so useful Q-code which we got in every weekly test at Radio College in Manchester - never heard it used since, but it's chiselled into my memory bank;-

QUQ? Shall I train my searchlight nearly vertical on a cloud, occulting if possible, and if the aircraft is seen, deflect the beam up-wind on the water or land, to facilitate your landing?

Regards
Gary
---------------------------
Semper rectus, semper agilis
 
#11 ·
The only one I can remember from my College days is QRM - I am being interfered with (the way I remember it it was M - Molested).

Strange how somethings stick in the mind after decades without ever using it.
 
#13 ·
Similarly, QRQ? - Can you send faster? (remembered by "Quicker) and QSQ? (Do you have a doctor on board? (remembered by "Quack"). I think I've got them the right way round.

All that stuff is stuck in my head too, that's why there is no room for me to know where I put my watch weeks ago! QTR? anybody - "What is the exact time?"

John T.
 
#14 ·
While doing some Googling on another subject I came across this.


P/O PRUNE CATCHES A CODE

P/O Prune went into town;
Of beer he had his fill;
So when they asked him “QBA?”
He answered sadly “NIL”,

His comrades sat him at the bar;
“Now “QAH?” They said,
But ere he got a QFE,
He climbed a bit instead.

He stood and shouted “QVG
And QTH precarious”
Then QFO’d upon the floor,
His language mixed and various.

Oh QFR,” Prune said. I guess
I QGH’d too fast
Control! – I’m in a ruddy mess!
A QGX please! Blast!

He then turned to the Bar Maid
Saying, “QDR my dear?”
She answered rather snappily
“That QFT’s right here!”

The QTR is “time” at last,
So QAA at mess?
“You seem to me, Prune, almost tight:
So QAK unless.”

“You wish to QAL in jug
And be a most peculiar mug.
So get your QDM for home;
Allow for drift and do not roam.”

From TEE EMM September 1941. (Wartime RAF Training Manual)

Translation for the non radio Q codes when I find my copy of the code of signals.[=P]
 
#15 ·
Nice one Marconi Sahib, like it.

Then there's always: 'She was only the Sparkies' daughter, and she di-dit 'cos her Da-dah-di-dit

Regards
Gary
---------------------------
Semper rectus, semper agilis
 
#17 ·
I can't help thinking that Spark's secret language was nothing more than morse code. In 31 years, I sailed in 19 ships & several times it was with captains who claimed to know morse code with a far greater profficiency that I did & yet I could tell by their blank stares when I was "on the air" that this was simply not true. I wonder why some of them needed to do this? - surely as Masters under God it was unnecessary? I am not talking about tyrants, but generally decent types with whom I got on very well.
One of them did give me a scare though. It was aboard a Union-Castle liner & the captain in question died suddenly one dark calm night off the island of St. Helena. He was a true gentleman & we got on famously - he claimed to be an expert in morse. The night after the burial at sea, I was tuning in to Portishead to pick up some traffic & as I let go of the dial for an instant, the message in very clear morse came in loud & clear "sorry I didn't have time to say cheerio!" gave me quite a start, but it was only a genuine message going out to another ship!
Bob
 
#19 ·
Securité = Safety as in TTT. Definitely French but I'm not sure about Pan.

Morse was at least a semi-secret language, or else why would there be screams of "SPAAAAARKS" from the bridge when a ship had been called on the lamp and they'd actually replied much to the OODs dismay. [=P]
 
#23 ·
It's commonly believed that "LID" for a poor operator comes from the early days of landline morse which which was copied on a sounder. These were often placed in a resonator box to make them louder but that only increased the racket in a busy telegraph office so the new operators used to put a tobacco tin or its lid in the resonator so that that the sound was different and therefore easier to copy. I believe they also used the expression "plug" operator because it was a tobacco tin that was usually used. I stand open to correction if we have any old time landline telegraph operators on board who actually had landline experience.

All the best,

John/gwzm
 
#24 ·
Part of my Navigation Cadet course was to learn to send and receive morse on a lamp, well at College it was a small light fitted in a box just below the ceiling.

A classmate sat in front writing down the letters I spoke out. Then it was turn around where I would write down his letters.

Learning morse on this course helped me a great deal when I went on my Sparks course.
 
#30 ·
Acccording to the Web Babelfish translation service from French to English the word panne means breakdown.
I'm presently studying for the FRTOL aviation R/T licence and am also using Pan messages in my training. There are obviously a lot more R/T procedures in ATC working than I ever used for R/T at sea. In fact I have to somehow loose some of the remembered seagoing R/T procedures inbuilt in the subconscious..not easy (?HUH)
 
#29 ·
Hi
Can anyone remember that story that circulated around the radio colleges based on electrical teminonlogy, I remember a bit of it::

"police are searching for eddy current, who is wanted for the induction of a 16mH coil. He escaped from a Leclanche Cell and was last seen driving over a wheastone bridge on a megacycle".............Anyone got a copy of it?

Alan
 
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