Prosigns

are special Morse code characters which are commonly used. NOTE that two letter pro signs are given as two Morse code letters without a space in between.

• KN -.--. passes the transmitting over to a single station
• K -.- passes the transmitting over
• C -.-. correct, affirmative
• CL -.-. .-.. closing down (with space). The station does not intend to keep on using the frequency.
• N -. no, negative
• BK -...-.- break in
• BT -...- break point (=), do not confuse with -....- hyphen
• CT -.-.- commence traffic, starting to transmit, or start of a message. ct is not used very often.
• AR .-.-. end of message, this prosign is superfluous in informal CW traffic. In networks that exchange formal telegrams (qtc) the ar prosign ends a qtc. ar is still used in such qtc nets but also outside them. Different op have different opinions about it and use it differently.
• SK ...-.- transmission finished. No reply expected. This ends a qso. The station may change frequency or may restart calling cq on this frequency.
• VE ...-. understood, correctly received, German: verstanden
• R .-. roger/received (occasionally r is transmit with an extra pause (. -.) after the first dot.
• AS .-... wait (a second)
• error ........ 8 dots is the prosign for errors. The correct use is to put the error sign after an error and to repeat the last correct word. This practice is rarely observed in ham radio, usually an incorrect word is corrected by transmitting the correct word afterwards plus one or two repetitions of the correct word. At times the error prosign is replaced by a short sequence of dots with spaces.

Most of these prosign Morse chars are used in qso practice, the 'n' is less common and often replaced by a plain 'no'. The 'r' is often used as a habit an does not necessarily mean that your qso partner has understood the entire message (though it should mean exactly this).

Obs

Those using electronic code generators with a keyboard interface are advised to check that the correct code is always transmitted. Most code generators can create prosigns but they are using particular keyboard sequences.