The jargons of ham radio and the Internet

[WeepingElf]

I am sure lurker can answer my question: How much ham radio jargon has spilled over into Internet jargon? I know hardly anything about ham radio jargon, beyond such items as callsign or QSO, which I am not familiar with from Internet jargon, but how much Internet jargon originates in the ham radio scene?

[lurker]

I am sure lurker can answer my question: How much ham radio jargon has spilled over into Internet jargon? I know hardly anything about ham radio jargon, beyond such items as callsign or QSO, which I am not familiar with from Internet jargon, but how much Internet jargon originates in the ham radio scene?

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. I'm not aware of specific Internet jargon that's ham-related, but some computer terms are.

the abbreviations TX for transmit and RX for receive, which are encountered in networking, go back to landline telegraphy. Others of their ilk include WX for weather and DX for distance. DX now more often refers to long-distance communication specifically.

Other terms I've encountered with similar pedigrees include keying as in frequency shift keying, phase shift keying, etc, as well as the terms mark and space referring to different states of a signal medium. These all go back to Morse code.

I believe the term modem, modulator-demodulator, may have originated in the hobby, as other words using the same clipping strategy exist, like balun, balanced-unbalanced, and unun unbalanced-unbalanced.

I'm not aware of this term being used frequently, but the phrase "spin the dial" refers to politely disengaging from a discussion you don't agree with rather than starting an argument. It refers to turning the VFO knob to another frequency. I feel like it could fit online as well as on the radio.

Wandering even further from your original question, if you want "4Chan before the Internet", then look no further than the 11-meter band, which is used by CB radio. Ham radio requires a license, and CB doesn't. While hams are by no means universally polite (I call hams nerdy rednecks for a reason), the quality of discourse is much, much higher on the ham bands compared to CB, at least in my experience.

[WeepingElf]

Thank you for your answer, lurker.