Talk:Q code

Q code
from article: "QSL used to verify time when communicating with TSC" what is behind TSC abbreviation? could there be a link or short explanation in parentneses? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.81.208.41 (talk) 15:43, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Gosh, unless things have changed considerably in the 37 years since I earned my amateur license, Q signals were never intended for use on phone. The table in the Amateur Radio section containing "Sample Use" is a ridiculous misuse of the Q signals (or codes); IMHO it should be stricken from the page entirely.

I'll wait some period of time to see if anyone wishes to rebut my claim. If I see nothing added to this discussion page, I will strike that column from the table entirely.

--PhilTemples, K9HI 19:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

They may well have never been intended for use on phone, but they certainly *are* used. Frequently. 198.103.39.129 (talk) 20:38, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

From personal experience as both a civilian and Royal Naval operator I've definitely used Q and Z codes on voice and heard others both military and civilians use them. I agree that the amateur radio "sample use" is not very good but my experience of amateurs using the 'q' codes is that they did use them slightly differently but I would not have enought experience of amateur usage to know whether the examples given are a ridiculous misuse.Watchkeeper (talk) 18:30, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * From my study and short license tenure (USA, Novice) in the 1960s, I also have very definite memories of Q codes used in voice contact. --Thnidu (ex WV2PBR) (talk) 21:53, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm removing the following:

They may also be qualified by the word "no", to negate their normal meaning, or the letter "c" to reply in the affirmative. For example, a reply of "QRPC" would mean "Yes, please decrease your transmitter power".

I have been an active and quite proficient amateur radio CW operator for over 46 years and I have never once heard this practice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wfeidt (talk • contribs) 15:52, 25 July 2003

3-Quinuclidinyl_benzilate has a notice that QNB directs to that page, but to see QNB (amateur radio) for the spoof amateur radio Q code. QNB (amateur radio) redirects here, but this page has no mention of what the spoof amateur Q code might mean or if it was ever used. Cheyinka 01:16, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I changed the number in the sample use of QSA from 9 to 5 IAW ITU Recomendation M.1172 (already the 2nd to last link in this article) which shows QSA ranging from 1 to 5.

Aviation Procedures - QGH. Please could someone more at home with this topic consider this for the main article ? For a long time in RAF usage QGH was not the question "May I land using ... (procedure or facility)? " but rather the name of an ATC approach procedure. The aircraft would start overhead the destination airfield at altitude. From its transmissions the ATC would detect the overhead, would authorise it to descend and would subsequently steer it to remain within a defined tear-drop pattern. At a predetermined altitude ATC would authorise it to turn inbound so that it was positioned for a straight-in instrument or visual approch to land.
 * When I last looked QGH was still a valid instrument approach procedure in the UK at some military fields (albeit a back-up). BaseTurnComplete 21:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Signal flags
International signal flags have signals that may start with a letter Q but which are unrelated to the radio Q code. The flag codes use similar ideas of stereotype expressions to handle common situations. --Wtshymanski (talk) 01:30, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

More humor
QQD. &mdash;141.153.217.32 (talk) 01:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Plausible confusion with QR Code -- the two dimensional barcode type
I just mis-remembered this as the name of the 2D barcode format, QR Code. I've added a see-also to it, feel free to revert, but please leave your justification for why you did so here. Thanks! JesseW, the juggling janitor 18:03, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

QFE?
We currently have : ''Atmospheric pressure at sea level, corrected for temperature and adjusted to a specified datum such as airfield elevation. When set on the altimeter it reads height''. What is the relevance of 'at sea level'? It is adjusted for elevation (ie not sea level). Martin Hogbin (talk) 11:44, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I found this on WP, but still with no ref, ''The barometric altimeter setting that will cause an altimeter to read zero when at the reference datum of a particular airfield (in general, a runway threshold). In ISA temperature conditions the altimeter will read height above the datum in the vicinity of the airfield.'' It is much better. Martin Hogbin (talk) 11:51, 23 March 2013 (UTC) ./,//////////////////////////// — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.210.161.225 (talk) 11:04, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

The inserted definition of QFE is correct, the inserted definition of QNH is wrong (the currently inserted definition effectively duplicates that for QFE). The current definition of QFF should be inserted for QNH. The correct definition of QFF is the pressure setting for aircraft at significant altitude to have a common pressure setting. This is currently fixed by all countries to be 1013 millibars. This pressure setting then sets the altitude of Flight Levels. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.77.151 (talk) 07:53, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Informal and humorous amateur radio codes
I added a couple of informal non-CW uses of amateur radio codes, with referenced examples. That made the text after the table even longer, so I gave it its own h4 subhead, Informal usage, and rearranged it into paragraphs ordered by Q-code.

The humorous codes like QLF ("try sending with your LEFT foot") didn't fit in that, so I moved that para out to a subsection of its own). And the discussion of the official use of QRS ("Send more slowly") was redundant with the table.

A couple more useful things done too, like a link to the ARRL page on Q codes, officially describing their unofficial status.

--Thnidu (talk) 01:04, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not very familiar with the standards and policies here but since when does a single second-second hand citation of a single person misusing a term constitute a proper reference? Look at reference 9 in the article, then follow the link. The total support for this use of QSY is a single quote from a forum posting by an individual not even identified. Perhaps "QSY" might actually be used this way in GB but, if so, it seems to be an unusual and local variation. In over three decades as an amateur radio operator in the United States, I have never seen or heard QSY used to refer to anything other than a change of frequency. Perhaps some UK hams can comment on whether or not this usage actually exists and provide some valid reference. - N4AOF — Preceding unsigned comment added by N4aof (talk • contribs) 15:39, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Humorous Q codes in the amateur radio service
I have reverted the deletion of this section as vandalism. It is not vandalism but a good faith attempt to add some informal usage to WP. Informal,and sometimes offensive, use of official language is quite common.

The real problem is the lack of sources. Perhaps the person who added them could provide some sort of verification that these codes are, in fact, in regular use and not just a figment of their imagination. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:52, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Indeed, which is why I reverted the original edits. Apart from QLF, and QRG which is a regular code, I have never ever heard ANY of these used in 40 years on the amateur bands. It all looks like somebody's imagination has gone a bit wild. Yes, we need sources, but I rather suspect there are none. Dsergeant (talk) 17:45, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * As no one has come up with any reliable sources, I would not object if the section were removed. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:33, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Um, Google. I see dozens of websites with all those [now deleted] informal Q-codes. Even QPP. ~ Agvulpine (talk) 22:48, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Find a reliable source and you can put them all back. Martin Hogbin (talk) 07:38, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Missing and deleted references
Many of the external references and the article references are no longer working. Not sure if the initial links are wrong or if the pages just went away. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.144.208.192 (talk) 15:55, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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[AP13], [AP14]
In the table in § In All Services (QRA–QUZ), the strings "[AP13]" and "[AP14]" appear 45 times, in 13 and 10 rows respectively, usually in both columns (there is one exception), and often both in the same row.

They are not footnotes or links, and there is no explicit statement of what they mean, but the opening text of the section reads
 * First defined by the Washington 1927 ITU Radio Regulations. Later defined by ITU-R in Appendix 9 to the Radio Regulations Annex to the International Telecommunications Convention (Atlantic City) 1947. The current callsign table is found in ITU-R Appendix 42. Current interpretation of the Q-code can be found in ITU-R Appendices 14 and 15.


 * ITU Radio Regulations 1990, Appendix 13: Miscellaneous Abbreviations and Signals to Be Used in Radiotelegraphy Communications Except in the Maritime Mobile Service

("[AP15]" does not appear at all.)

It seems clear that the bracketed strings are meant as source references to Appendices 13 and 14. Nevertheless, it should be made explicit. Thnidu (talk) 02:21, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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I have just modified 3 external links on Q code. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111119091213/http://www.armymars.net/ArmyMARS/DigitalOps/Resources/acp131-operating-sigs.pdf to http://www.armymars.net/ArmyMARS/DigitalOps/Resources/acp131-operating-sigs.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150421175748/http://life.itu.int/radioclub/rr/m1172.htm to http://life.itu.int/radioclub/rr/m1172.htm

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Random complaints by "Tom"
Very BAD written aricle. A lot of codes are missing and somebody forget add QUG-QUZ, and some minor errors.

The is no Red Army Q codes at all (its still used on radiotelegraphy while NATO codes are dead today) 73 Tom


 * The above comments were originally top-posted on 15:26, 16 August 2018 by 193.19.167.123, destroying the "Q code" section header (and misplacing the Talk table of contents) in the process. Next edit will remove that damage.  AHMartin (talk) 00:32, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Suggest merge July 2020
QNH could be merged here. None of these codes are notable enough in the Wikipedia sense to warrant separate articles, and the meaning of the particular code is already explained here. There is nothing with references at QNH. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:45, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * support merge and agree with rationale.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 19:11, 9 July 2020 (UTC)