Prosigns for Morse code
predefined Morse code patterns with meanings distinct from the letters the patterns normally represent
Procedural signs or prosigns are shorthand signals used in Morse code telegraphy, for the purpose of simplifying and standardizing procedural protocols for landline and radio communication. The procedural signs are distinct from conventional Morse code abbreviations, which consist mainly of brevity codes that convey messages to other parties with greater speed and accuracy. However, some codes are used both as prosigns and as single letters or punctuation marks, and for those there is an ambiguity even in context since they are not distinct.
Overview
In the broader sense prosigns are just standardised parts of short form radio protocol, and can include any abbreviation. Examples would be K for "okay, heard you, continue" or R for "message, received". In a more restricted sense, "prosign" refers to something analogous to the nonprinting control characters in teleprinter and computer character sets, such as Baudot and ASCII. Different from abbreviations, those are universally recognizable across language barriers as distinct and well-defined symbols.
At the coding level, prosigns admit any form the Morse code can take, unlike abbreviations which have to be sent as a sequence of individual letters, like ordinary text. On the other hand, most prosigns codes are much longer than typical codes for letters and numbers. They are individual and indivisible code points within the broader Morse code, fully at par with basic letters and numbers.
The development of prosigns began in the 1860s for wired telegraphy.
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This entry incorporates text from “Prosigns for Morse code” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.