As many times mentioned before "as long as the message gets through".
That said, "Roger" is CB-slang just like ten-four.
Roger came out of CW (morse code) abbreviations.
Roger is not good practice but over the years it have become a widely known word for confirming or "affirmative".
Why is it bad practice?
Because it does not mean confirm or affirmative - it means Received.
Speaking about affirmative. You Americans and
English whom has the English language as your mother tongue do not have a problem with this but affirmative is not a word which is learned in the first couple of 6-8 years studying English if you are born in a country where another language is spoken. In fact, I probably had 9-10 years of English studies in
school and this word never popped up in my glossary homework. It stumbled upon me in other rooms. So when having a radio conversation with someone who uses English as a secondary language it may be wise to rather use roger, I understand or I confirm instead of affirmative in order to not be misunderstood.
Back to roger....
As earlier said roger is a abbreviation from morse code and the meaning is to understand it as "Received".
Morse code being a almost 200 year old invention was actually what influenced the chat and texting abbreviations. Morse code users found many ways to shorten what was needed to be sent by the key.
A R in code is a short, a long and a short. Didahdith is pretty much how it sounds.
So to confirm that previous message was received without doubt the operator can send didahdith didahdith didahdith, many times as 3 R´s send pretty much as one word. But it is also common with just one R.
Speaking about abreviations and morse code. What can be, and what is really the proper use is by using abbreviations from the Q-code.
The international Q-code is worthy to look up. It is 3 letter (on rare occations 4) short abbreviations all starting with Q. The radio operators of military as well as cargo ships would use the Q-code.
Many of the Q-codes has to do with harbor, freight, cargo, and whatnot interesting for a cruiser but there is some very useful Q-codes which could be used and is commonly known among radio operators as well as
marine vhf users of some countries pending what is required for licensing. It is also widely used by hams (radio amatuers).
It can be used for morse code, phone/voice modes like FM, AM,
SSB as well as digital modes like packet,
pactor,
pactor 2, psk31, RTTY and the list goes on.
Here is some examples:
QSL - Can you confirm? I confirm. (here is the affirmative)
QRN - Are you disturbed by
noise (atmospheric radio noise). I am disturbed by
noise.
QRM - Are you disturbed by noise (other radio operators on same or near frequency). I am disturbed by noise.
QSB - Is my signal fading? Your signal is fading. (to be used when the signal is so weak you can only hear part of message).
QTH - What is your
current position? My
current position is.
QTC - Do you have any messages for me? I have messages for you. (to be used when relaying messages).
QRO - Should I increase my transmission
power? Increase your transmitted power. It also means if you say your are QRO that you are transmitting high power.
Now the international phonetics set Romeo as the word for R, it derives from the Nato phonetic alphabet.
Now, in the old fashioned Western Union phonetic alphabet which started with
Adams, Boston, Chicago, Denver one could find Roger being the word for R.
Being used solely in the Americas it was picked up by the early CB users in the 50's and that is where it moved on.
Then the common knowledge of Roger was internationalized during one of the Nasa moon trips when a so called "roger beep" was invented for the automatic use of the orbital to end their transmission - makes it easier for
Houston ground control to know when the astronauts actually had ended their transmit when the signal and quality was low as the beep would go through much better then a word on voice.
Well, there is some ranting for you.
Please remember..... Roger means Received, not affirmative/confirm/understand.
Cheers,
Magnus
Linear Mode
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