Always under construction By Hugh Stegman nv6H

(2) Nuclear Regulatory Commission (US)

NREN National Research and Education Network, faster Internet successor

for research sites

NRI Net radio interface

NRK Norsk Rikskringkasting (Denmark broadcast co.)

NRL Naval Research Laboratory (US)

NRN National Radio News (Australia)

NRO National Reconnaissance Office (operates US spy satellites)

NRS (1) Naval Radio Section (Canforce)

(2) Nordic Radio Society

NRT Navigation Response Team

NRTF Naval Radio Transmitting Facility (US)

NRV US Coast Guard COMMSTA, Guam, controlled from CAMSPAC

NRWATS Naval Rotary Wing Aircraft Test Squadron

NRZ Nonreturn to Zero

NRZL Nonreturn To Zero Level

NRZM Nonreturn To Zero Mark

NRZS Nonreturn To Zero Space

NS Node switch

NS/EP National Security/ Emergency Preparedness

NSA (1) National Security Agency (US intercept and crypto)

(2) No Such Agency (NSA used to "not exist")

(3) Never Say Anything (NSA secrecy policy)

NSAP Network Service Address Point

NSAWC Naval Strike and Air Weapons Center (replaces "Top Gun")

NSAWC Navy Strike Aircraft Weapons Center

NSE National Support Element

NSF (1) National Strike Force

(2) National Science Foundation (US)

(3) Non-Sufficient Funds

NSFNET National Science Foundation Network, old Internet backbone

NSK Narrowband shift keying

NSP NGT System Programmer (Codan)

NSS Navigation Safety System

NSSE National Special Security Event (DHS)

NSSL National Severe Storms Laboratory (US)

NSSN National Standards System Network

NSTAC National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (US)

NSU Network Server Unit

nT Nanotesla (unit of magnetic flux=1nWeber/m)

NT Not Tested

NTA (1) National Telecommunications Alliance (NCS)

(2) National telecom administration (ITU member bodies)

NTC National Teleregistration Center (FEMA)

NTCC Naval TeleCommunications Center

NTCN National Telecommunication Coordination Network

NTIA National Telecommunications and Information Administration

NTM Notice to Mariners

NTMS National Telecommunications Management Structure (national

emergency plan)

NTN NATO Track Number

NTP Network Time Protocol

NTS (1) National Traffic System, amateur message network

(2) Naval Telecommunications System

NTSC (1) National Television Standards Committee (old US TV standard)

(2) Never The Same Color (result of using above)

NTT Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (Japanese "FCC")

NUC Nuclear

NUCINT Nuclear Intelligence

NUCO Numerical Code (US Navy)

NUDET Nuclear detonation

NUKO Old group call: To All Ships Receiving MERCAST

NUL Nothing (ASCII 0000)

NVG Night-Vision Goggles

NVIC Navigation & Vessel Inspection Circular

NVIS Near Vertical Incidence Skywave

NVOAD National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster

NVRAM Nonvolatile Random Access Memory

NW (1) CW brevity code: "Now," or "New"

(2) Northwest

NWC Naval Weapons Center

NWCG National Wildfire Coordination Group

NWEF Naval Weapons Evaluation Facility

NWR NOAA Weather Radio

NWS (1) National Weather Service (US)

(2) Naval Weapons Station

NWSFO National Weather Service Forecsting Office

NWSOP National Winter Storm Operation Plan

nx News

NXCM NXDN Core Manager

NXCORE NX Core Manager

NXDN NeXt generation Digital Narrowband (Icom/Kenwood FDMA voice)

NYSEMO New York State Emergency Management Office

O&O Owned & Operated (by broadcast network)

o/l Online

O/R On request

O/R Address Originator/Recipient Address

O/S Out of service

OARNET Ohio Academic Resources Network

OASD/C3I Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for command, control,

communications and intelligence

OASIS Operational and Supportability Implementation System (FAA)

OBC On-board computer

OBS Ship weather report in standard form

OBU On-Board Unit

OCA Oceanic Control Area

OCC Operations Control Center (Centre)

OCD (1) Office of Civilian Defense, obsolete

(2) Operations Control Division, LAFD, now "Metro Fire"

OCDMA Orthogonal Code-Division Multiple Access

OCNL occasional

OCONUS Outside Continental United States

OCOT Office of the Chief of Transportation (US Army)

OCPAR Optically Controlled Phased-Array Radar

OCR (1) Optical Character Recognition

(2) Optically Coupled Regenerative

OCS Office of Coast Survey

OCXO Oven-Controlled Crystal Oscillator

OD (1) Officer of the Day

(2) Overdose

(3) Outside Diameter

ODBC Open DataBase Connectivity (Microsoft)

ODMA Orthogonal Domain Multiple Access

ODMP Orbiter Maintenance Down Period (NASA)

OE Operating Expense

OEI One Engine Inoperative

OEIC OptoElectronic Integrated Circuit

OEM (1) Original Equipment Manufacturer

(2) Office of Emergency Management

OFCM Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology

OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex

OFP Operational Flight Program

OFS Operational Fixed Service

OG Operations Group

OGA Other Governmental Agencies (formerly "NOC")

OHD overhead

OIC Officer In Charge

OIS Organization for Internet Security

OLAC Open Language Archives Community

OLAP On-Line Analytical Processing

OLF Outlying Landing Field (US Navy)

OLTP On-Line Transaction Processing (IBM)

OLX OLE Custom Control (MS made it up... i didn't)

OM Male voice ("Old Man")

OMAR French: Organisation MARitime des transmissions haute fréquence

OMC Operations and Maintenance Center

OMEGA Optimized Method for Estimated Guidance Accuracy (VLF Navigation)

OMF (Weather) Observation Markup Format

OMNERC Optical Memory National Engineering Research Center (China)

OMS ("ohms") Orbital Maneuvering System (NASA)

OO Official Observer (Amateur)

OOB (1) Out of band

(2) Out Of Bounds (classic Internet hack)

(3) Out Of Beer

OOC Official Observer Coordinator (Amateur)

OOK On-off keying

OOOI Out, Off, On, In (ACARS time reporting)

OOP Object-Oriented Programming

OOW Operations Other than War

OP Observation Post

op Operation

OPAL Orbiting Picosat Automatic Launcher

OPBAT (1) Operations, Bahamas and Turks (Old DEA)

(2) Operation Bahamas, Turks and Caicos (Newer joint op)

OPBO Output Power Back-Off

OPC (1) Ocean Prediction Center, Camp Springs, MD

(2) Operations Center

(3) Offshore Patrol Cutter (USCG)

OPCEN Operations Center

OPCODE Operations code

OPCON Operational control

OPF Orbiter Processing Facility (NASA)

OPLL Optical Phase Locked Loop

OPLAN Operations plan

OPORD Operation order

OPSEC Operation Security

OQPSK Offset Quadrature Phase Shift Keying

OR Offroute (unscheduled flights, usually military)

ORACLE Oak Ridge Automated Computer and Logical Engine

ORBS Open Relay Behaviour-modification System (anti-email-spam)

ORF Oesterreichischer Rundfunk (Austrian broadcasting co.)

ORFM Office of Radio Frequency Management

org organization (Internet)

OS (1) Operating system (code that runs a computer)

(2) Operations Support

(3) Operations Specialist (combines older USCG RD and TC)

OS/2 Operating System 2, proprietary IBM op-system for PS/2

OSACOM Operational Support Airlift Command

OSC (1) Operations Systems Center, USCG, VA

(2) On-Scene Coordinator

(3) Oscillator [~]

OSCAR Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio

OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

OSCR Ocean Surface Current Radar

OSEI Operational Significant Event Imagery (NOAA)

OSI Open Systems Interconnection (coincidentally, OSI is by ISO)

OSIR ISO's famous 7-layer "OSI Reference Model" for packet

OSIRM ISO's famous 7-layer "OSI Reference Model" for packet

OSPF Open Shortest Path First

OSS Office of Special Services, WWII

OST Operational Sea Training (UK)

OSTP Office of Science and Technology Policy (US Government)

OSWER Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response

OTA Over The Air

OTAN NATO in French

OTAR Over-The-Air Rekeying (crypto)

OTASP Over-the-Air Service Provisioning (telco)

OTCIXS Officer in Tactical Command Information Exchange System

OTH Over The Horizon

OTHB Over The Horizon Backscatter radar

OTHR Over The Horizon Radar

OUI Organizationally Unique Identifier

Out Voice prosign: Contact completed, going back to listening

OVC overcast

Over Voice prosign: Transmission completed, go ahead

OVR Overcast

OWF Optimum Working Frequency, realtime version of FOT

OWI Office of War Information, WW II

OWVL One-Way Voice Link (example is "numbers")

P greater than

(2) Plus

(3) Power (in watts)

P/N Part number

p/p (1) phone patch

(2) point-to-point

(3) peak-to-peak

P25 (APCO) Project 25 (digital radio standard)

PA (1) Power amplifier

(2) Public address system

(3) Passenger agent

(4) Privacy Act

(5) Proceed Authority

(6) Public Access

PAA Phased Array Antenna

PAC (1) Pacific

(2) Personnel and Administration Center

(3) Political Action Committee

PAC-3 Patriot Advance Capability 3

PACAF Pacific Air Forces (US)

PACAREA Pacific Area (USCG)

PACMARF Pacific Military Altitude Reservation Function

PACS Personal Access Communications System (US)

pACT personal Air Communications Technology

PACSAT Packet radio satellite

PACTOR Packet teleprinting over radio (modes 1 and 2)

PAD Packet assembler/disassembler

PADAN PAcket Digital Amateur Network

PADIL PATRIOT Digital Information Link (US missile batteries)

PAEW Persons And Equipment Working

PAL (1) Phase Alternating Line (W. Europe analog TV standard)

(2) Positive Arm Latches

(3) Programmable Array Logic

PAL Plus 16:9 PAL

PAM (1) Phase-Amplitude Modulation, modems

(2) Pulse Amplitude Modulation

(3) Pluggable Authentication Modules (Linux)

PAN (1) Prosign: priority safety traffic follows (also "PAN PAN") [~]

(2) Public Access Network

PANA Pan-African News Agency

PANS Procedures for Air Navigation Services

PAO Public affairs officer

PAP (1) Polska Agencja Prasowa, Polish news agency

(2) Password Authentication Protocol, computer networks

PAPI Precision Approach Path Indicator

PAR Precision Approach Radar, new name for GCA

PARC Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox, obsolete)

PASR personnel accounting and strength reporting

PATRECONFOR Patrol and Reconnaissance Force (US Navy)

PATWAS Pilot Automated Telephone Weather Answering Service

PAVE Precision Acquisition Vehicle Entry

PAVE PAWS Phased array SLBM warning system, 4 US Coastal sites

PAWS (1) Phased Array Warning System, e.g., PAVE PAWS

(2) Programmable Analyst Work Station

PAWSS Ports and Waterways Safety System

PAX (1) Passengers

(2) ~"Peace" in Latin ("Pax Americana")

PB Patrol Boat

PBBS Packet Bulletin Board System

PBN Performance Based Navigation

PBS Public Broadcasting System

PBT Portable Breathalyzer Test (police drunk testing)

PBX Private Branch Exchange (telco)

PC (1) Personal Computer

(2) Printed Circuit

PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect (Intel)

PCM Pulse code modulation

PCMCIA Personal Computer Memory Card International Association

PCN Personal Communications Network

PCU Power Conditioning Unit

PCS (1) Personal Communications Service (mobile phone)

(2) Performance Control System

(3) Prelaunch Compatibility Station (GPS)

(4) Personal Communications System

PCSS Port & Coastal Security System

PD Pulsed Doppler (radar)

PDA Personal Digital Assistant (palmtop computer)

PDC (1) Pre-Departure Clearance

(2) Personal Digital Cellular

PDF Portable Document Format (Adobe)

PDIP Plastic Dual In-Line Package

PDM Pulse Duration Modulation

PDP Programmed Data Processor (DEC, 1960 on, classic machines)

PDS Particularly Dangerous Situation (NOAA/NWS)

PDT Pacific Daylight Time, US

PDU Protocol Data Unit

PE (1) ice pellets

(2) Portable Executable (Micky$oft)

PEBB Power Electronic Building Block

PEEC Partial Element Equivalent Circuit

PEM Privacy Enhanced Mail

PEO-C3S Program Executive Office - Command, Control and Communications

Systems

PEO-IEWS Program Executive Office - Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors

PEP Peak envelope power

PER Packed Encoding Rules

PERL Practical Extraction and Report Language, Unix scripting

pers personnel

PERSCOM Personnel command

PEST Plasma Experiment Satellite Test

PETAL Preliminary Eurocontrol Trial Air-ground data Link

pf Picofarad

PF Pilot Flying

PFC (1) Private, First Class

(2) Prepared Form Card, a homemade QSL for a station to sign

PFET P-type FET

PFRR Poker Flat Research Range, AK

PGP Pretty Good Privacy, e-mail encryption program

PHEMT Psuedomorphic High Electron Mobility Transistor

PHOTINT Photographic Intelligence (satellite pics, etc.)

PHP (1) PHP Hypertext Processor (a recursive acronym)

(2) Personal Handy Phone (Japan)

PI protection interval

PIC (1) Person In Charge

(2) Programmable Interrupt Controller (computers)

PIM Passive Intermodulation

PIN (1) Personal Identification Number

(2) Positive-Intrinsic-Negative (diode)

pine Pine Is Nearly/Not/Not yet Elm, Unix mailer

PING Packet InterNet Groper (ICMP "ping pong" tester for net)

PIO (1) Public Information Officer

(2) Programmed Input/Output

PIP Peripheral Interchange Program, old CP/M copy

PIPEX Public IP EXchange (UK)

PIREP Pilot Report, weather in standard form

PIW Person(s) In Water

P-JFET P-type JFET

PK WND peak wind

PKW (1) German: Personenkraftwagen (passenger car)

(2) Polish: Polski Kontyngent Wojskowy (Polish Military Contingent,

in KFOR)

PL (1) "Private Line," Motorola tradename for CTCSS

(2) Pilot light

PL/1 Programming Language 1 (computer code)

PLA Plain Language Address (name of station; UCSG)

PLB Personal Locator Beacon

PLC Power Line Carrier (Power company LF control system)

PLIP Parallel Line Internet Protocol

PLL (1) Phase Locked Loop

(2) prescribed load list

PLMN Private Land-Mobile Network

PLMR Private Land-Mobile Radio

PLS CW brevity: Please [~]

PLT (1) Power Line Telemetry

(2) Power Line Telecommunication

PM (1) Phase Modulation, slightly resembles FM

(2) Post Meridian, hours between noon and 11:59 local

(3) Project Manager

(4) Private Message

PMBO Participating Mailbox

PMC Personnel management center

PMCS Preventive maintenance checks and services

PME Protective Multiple Earth (ground)

PMFC Pacific Missile Firing Center

PMO Provost Marshall's Office

PMOS Positive Metal Oxide Semiconductor

PMOSFET P-type MOSFET

PMR (1) Professional Mobile Radio (Europe)

(2) Private Mobile Radio (UK)

(3) Personal Mobile Radio

PMR446 Personnal Mobile Radio on 446 MHz, European

PMRS Private Mobile Radio Service

PMSE Polar Mesospheric Summer Echoes (VHF propagation)

PMSV Pilot-to-Metro Service

PM-TRCS Project manager, tactical radio communication systems

PN (1) Pseudo-Noise

(2) Pseudo-Random Noise

PNA Philippines News Agency

PNC Police Nationale du Congo (Congolese National Police)

PNF (1) Planar Near Field

(2) Pilot Not Flying

PNO precipitation amount not available

PnP Plug and Play

PNP Positive/Negative/Positive; transistor type

PNT Position, Navigation, and Timing

PO dust/sand whirls (dust devils)

POB Persons On Board

POC Point of Contact

POCSAG Post Office Code Standardization Advisory Group (paging)

POD Point of debarkation

POE Point of embarkation

POES Polar Orbit Environmental Satellite

POETS Push Off Early - Tomorrow's Saturday

POFS Private Operational Fixed Service

POL Petroleum, oils, and lubricants

POL-ARQ Polish diplomatic ARQ teleprinter system

POP (1) Post Office Protocol (Internet)

(2) Point of presence

(3) Probability Of Precipitation (NOAA)

POR Pacific Ocean Region (USCG)

PORTS Physical Oceanographic Real-Time Systems

POSIX OSI standard, like Unix

POSIX Portable Operating System Interface

POST Power-On Self Test

pot Potentiometer [~]

POTS (1) Plain Old Telephone System

(2) Plain Old Telephone Service

(3) Purchase Of Telephone Service (US Government)

POTUS President Of The United States

pp Phone patch

PP Transmission is in Portuguese

PPDL Point to Point Data Link

PPE Personal Protective Equipment

PPM (1) portable pixmap

(2) Page per minute

(3) Parts per million

(4) Pulse Position Modulation

PPP Point-to-Point Protocol

PPPoE Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet

PPR Prior Permission Required (military landing permit)

PPTP Point-to-Point-Tunneling Protocol

PQFP Plastic Quad Flat Pack

PQM path quality matrix

PR (1) Puerto Rico

(2) Person Reporting (police)

(3) partial

PRB Personal Radio Bureau (FCC)

PRB-1 Personal Radio Bureau 1, FCC resolution attempting to preempt local

radio laws

PRC (1) Pseudo-Range Correction (DGPS)

(2) People's Republic of China

prep preparation

PRESRR pressure rising rapidly

PRF Pulse Repetition Frequency

PRFG partial fog

PRM (1) Pulse rate modulation

(2) Precision Runway Monitor

PRML Partial Response Maximum Likelihood (HD transfer mode)

PROM Programmable Read Only Memory

ProSEDS Propulsive Small Expendable Deployer System (NASA)

Prosign Procedural Signal ("over," etc.)

PRZ Polar Return to Zero

PS Portable SIPRNet

PS/2 Personal System 2, IBM's less-than-sensational replacement for the PC

PSA Public Service Announcement

PSAP Public Safety Answering Point

PSB Personnel services battalion

PSD Power Spectral Density

PSDN Public Switched Data Network

PSE CW brevity: Please

PSK (1) Phase-shift keying

(2) Pre-Shared Key (Wi-Fi)

PSK31 Phase-shift keyed very narrowband simplex direct printing scheme

PSL Process Specification language

PSM Pulse step modulation

PSO Public service officer

PSR (1) Primary Surveillance Radar

(2) Personal Secure Radio

PSRAM Pseudo Static Random Access Memory, obsolescent

PSS (1) Personnel service support

(2) Packet Switch Stream (British Telecom)

PSSN pseudo sunspot number

PST (1) Port Security Team

(2) Pacific Standard Time, US

PSTN Public Switched Telephone Network

PSU (1) Power Supply Unit

(2) Port Security Unit

PSWAC Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee

PT (1) Preparedness, Training and Exercises Directorate (FEMA)

(2) Patrol Torpedo (boat)

(3) Permeability Tuned

PTC Parallel Test Component (Linux)

PTD Pilot-to-dispatcher

PTO (1) Permeability tuned oscillator

(2) Public Telecommunications Operator

PTR (1) Primary Training Range

(2) Puerto Rico

(3) Pointer [~]

PTS Priority Telecom Services (US DHS)

PTT (1) Push to talk

(2) Post, Telegraph and Telephone administration (UK)

PU ("Papa Uniform") participating unit

pub publication

PUP Principal User Processor

PVA Positive Vorticity Advection (wx geeks)

PVASI Pulsating Visual Approach Slope Indicator

PVO (1) Private Volunteer Organization

(2) ProtivoVozdushnoy Oborony, old Russian air defense, now part of air force

PWCS Port, Waterways, and Coastal Security (USCG)

PWINO precipitation identifier sensor not available

PWM Pulse width modulation

PWR Power

PY spray

Q (1) HectoPascals (U.S. METAR variant)

(2) Quality (measure of selectivity in inductive circuits)

QA Quality Assurance

QAM Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

QCWA Quarter Century Wireless Association (amateur)

QIFM Quadrature Intermediate Frequency Mixer

QLF Facetious prosign: Now send with your LEFT foot

QNH Set your altimeter to -- barometric pressure

QoS Quality of Service

QPC Question Pool Committee (amateur exams)

QPF Quantitive Precipitation Forecast (NOAA)

QPSK Quaternary Phase Shift Keying

QRA (?) The name of my station is -- (What is the name of your station?)

QRCT Quick Reaction Communications Terminal

QRG (?) (1) Your frequency is -- kHz (What is your frequency?)

QRH (?) Drift; "Your frequency varies..." (Do I have drift?)

QRL (?) I'm busy; frequency is in use (Are you busy? / Is this frequency in use?

QRM (?) (1) Your signals have interference (Does my signal have interference?)

(2) Interference in general (informal)

QRN (?) (1) Your signals have atmospheric noise (Does my signal have noise?)

(2) Atmospheric noise in general (informal)

QRO (?) (1) Please increase power (Should I increase power?)

(2) High power operation (informal)

QRP (?) (1) Please decrease power (Should I decrease power?)

(2) Low power operation (informal)

(3) Quick Reaction Package (US Army vehicle)

QRQ (?) Please increase transmission speed (Should I send faster?)

QRR Old land distress call, now SOS, MAYDAY, or QRRR

QRRR Old land distress call

QRS (?) Please reduce transmission speed (Should I reduce speed?)

QRSS (1) VERY low speed CW ("super QRS")

(2) Quasi-Random Signal Source

QRT (?) (1) Stop transmitting (Should I stop transmitting?)

(2) Station has ceased transmitting (informal; "he's QRT")

QRU (?) I have nothing for you. (Do you have anything for me?)

QRV (?) I am ready; go with your traffic (Are you ready?)

QRX (?) Please standby (Should I standby?)

QSA (?) Your signal strength is [1-5] (What is my signal strength?)

QSB (?) Your signal is fading [1-5] (Is my signal fading?)

QSD (?) Your keying is defective (Is my keying defective?)

QSK (?) (1) Use break-in CW. (Can you work break-in CW?)

(2) Duplex or single-channel break-in (informal)