RE: Meaning and origin of term I've heard in a few movies

5 by 5 refers to the first 2 of 3 elements of a radio signal report. The
3
elements are R - readability, S - strength and T - tone, hence the
report is
often known as an RST report. The 3 elements range from 0 to 5. You will
rarely here of the tone element as this refers to telegraphy (morse,
baudot
etc) rather than telephony (speech). Incidently if anyone gives a report
of
R0 or S0 they don't know what they are talking about as these mean
tottally
unreadable and no signal respectively so they couldn't have been
received in
the first place. R5 is a rare occurence - perfect readability and S5 is
a
very strong signal. The reports are heavily used in ham radio and I
believe
also in CB and PMR applications.

Craig Mitchell

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nathan Pettigrew [mailto:nathanp@MICROSOFT.com]
> Sent: 01 September 1998 16:50
> To: FTGZG-L@bolton. ac. uk (E-mail)
> Subject: Meaning and origin of term I've heard in a few movies
>
>
> Hello,
>
> Was watching Event Horizon last night and kept hearing the crew
> use the term
> "five by five".  It seemed to indicate that everything is working
fine.  I
> thought that I've also heard the term in another SF movie
> (Aliens, maybe?).
> I was wondering if anyone out there could say what the term means
(five by
> five what?) and where it came from.
>
> Thanks,
> Nathan
>
>