The 92 Code
By Jim Miccolis, N2EY
with comments by N6XN

We once again visit "The origin of 73".  Most hams know it stands for "Good bye and good luck" or does it?  And if there is a 73, and 88 stands for "Love and Kisses"  what happened to all the other numbers?

This topic comes up periodically just like the question "Where does the term 'Ham' come from?  The answer to that one is speculative at best and depends on whom you want to believe but the origin of '73' is well documented.  N2EY presents "The 92 Code" and answers not only the question of the origin of '73' but other questions perhaps not thought of.  For example, way back in the early days of televison at least one well know newscaster ended his broadcast with "That's 30 for tonight".  I always thought he meant his 30 minutes was up since it was a half-hour program.  Not so, according to Jim's list.  The code "30" means <no more> or <end> and as he points out at the end of his article, we CW ops use it in every QSO.  If you ever took a Morse test you also heard it as one of the prosigns and probably didn't even know it.  The prosign SK is produced when the number 30 is sent in the original telegraphers code (real Morse).  The following list is not complete, but its more complete than any I've seen to date:

 

In 1859, Western Union standardized on the "92 code" in which the numbers from 1 to 92 were assigned meanings. It was in this list that 73 got its present meaning. Later more numbers were added. Here's a partial list:
 

Editor Note; Had an input for 99 = Get Lost (probably unofficial)

"19" and "31" refer to train orders of two different types (absolute and permissive). They were so well known that the terms "19 order" and "31 order" were still in railroad use in the 1970s, after the telegraph was gone from railroad operations.

The Morse code used in US wire telegraphy was the "American" Morse code, which shares some codes with the "Continental" code we still use today. (The continent referred to in the name is Europe, and it became the standard code for radio work early in the 20th century).

The abbreviation "es" for "and" derives from the American Morse character "&" which was
dit dididit. The prosign "SK" with the letters run together derives from the American Morse "30", which was didididahdit daaaaaaaah (extra long dah is zero in that code).

There are some urban legends about Winchester rifles and such, but they do not stand up to historical fact.

73 de Jim, N2EY

Over the years there have been some variations attempted to 73, some QRP operators tried "72" to reflect less than full power. Yeah I know, a non-sequiter.  No wonder it didn't catch on.  A friend of mine, WB6JQP,  used to say "146 John, that's twice as good as 73". He's been SK for many years and I miss him and his corny humor.

In the Army, intercept ops sometimes used "99" to mean "Get a qualified op on the circuit".  That gravitated to the CW Ham bands for a while and was used as an insult.  It was replaced by QLF? which meant "are you sending with your left foot?" and that gave birth to the QLF contest where participants were invited to send a phrase with literally their left foot using a specially made key. We held some of these contests at the SARS meetings many years ago and some ops got pretty good at it.  That eventually morphed  into QWA contests which caught on at some of the more rowdy hamfests but I never heard anyone sending readable QWA code.  30 de N6XN and 73