Glossary of Terms & Acronyms

Glossary of Terms

Term Definition
CTCSS Continious Tone C S S

EOC Emergency Operations Center
Every state, county and most cities have an Emergency Operations Center. It is usually a dedicated room within a government building that has been specifically prepared to act as a meeting center when an emergency occurs. It would be considered the hub or nerve center during the emergency. Often, these rooms are equiped with Amateur Radio equipment (as well as commericial radio equipment) and Amateur Operators are expected to man the EOC during major activations.
HAM I knew if I left this one off the list I'd get zinged by someone. I don't believe HAM is an acronym. I do recall reading an article in QST a few years back that gave a story about some of the very first Amateur Radio operators and how the term HAM came about. I believe it had something to do with one of the operators call signs containing the letters HAM and getting some type of publicity because of work this person was doing with the government. Some how the name HAM has stuck. I may be remembering this all wrong. If you have real information on this, let me know!
OES Office of Emergency Services
The Office of Emergency Services is typically part of the state or local government (and depending on the size of your city, you may have both a state and city OES). They are responsible for helping to prepare for emergencies and facilitate services during an emergency. They typically staff and are located close to the EOC.
SET Simulated Emergency Test
An excercise generally held on a scheduled basis designed for training and testing of equipment. Communication traffic is often generated (written down) prior to the drill and distributed to the participants before the event.
It is not uncommon for SET's to be scheduled with other events to help facilitate some of the training.
PL Private Line
This is a trakemark product of Motorola. Transmitting a subauditable tone on the frequency allows receiving stations to listen (open squelch) or not to listen (close squelch) to the sending station.
Setting a radion to transmit a subauditable tone on a specified frequency is often referred to as PL encode. Setting a radio to receive signals only when a subauditable tone is being transmitted by another radio is often referred to as PL decode.
When PL is referenced, it is generally referring to the subauditable frequency which must be used to "open" the squelch of the receiving radio. Some repeaters may retransmit the subauditable tone allowing receiving radios to set the PL decode on their radio thus allowing them to listen only to that repeater.
Although PL is often used to describe this function, the more generic term for this feature is CTCSS.

Term	Definition
CTCSS	Continious Tone C S S
EOC	Emergency Operations Center Every state, county and most cities have an Emergency Operations Center. It is usually a dedicated room within a government building that has been specifically prepared to act as a meeting center when an emergency occurs. It would be considered the hub or nerve center during the emergency. Often, these rooms are equiped with Amateur Radio equipment (as well as commericial radio equipment) and Amateur Operators are expected to man the EOC during major activations.
HAM	I knew if I left this one off the list I'd get zinged by someone. I don't believe HAM is an acronym. I do recall reading an article in QST a few years back that gave a story about some of the very first Amateur Radio operators and how the term HAM came about. I believe it had something to do with one of the operators call signs containing the letters HAM and getting some type of publicity because of work this person was doing with the government. Some how the name HAM has stuck. I may be remembering this all wrong. If you have real information on this, let me know!
OES	Office of Emergency Services The Office of Emergency Services is typically part of the state or local government (and depending on the size of your city, you may have both a state and city OES). They are responsible for helping to prepare for emergencies and facilitate services during an emergency. They typically staff and are located close to the EOC.
SET	Simulated Emergency Test An excercise generally held on a scheduled basis designed for training and testing of equipment. Communication traffic is often generated (written down) prior to the drill and distributed to the participants before the event. It is not uncommon for SET's to be scheduled with other events to help facilitate some of the training.
PL	Private Line This is a trakemark product of Motorola. Transmitting a subauditable tone on the frequency allows receiving stations to listen (open squelch) or not to listen (close squelch) to the sending station. Setting a radion to transmit a subauditable tone on a specified frequency is often referred to as PL encode. Setting a radio to receive signals only when a subauditable tone is being transmitted by another radio is often referred to as PL decode. When PL is referenced, it is generally referring to the subauditable frequency which must be used to "open" the squelch of the receiving radio. Some repeaters may retransmit the subauditable tone allowing receiving radios to set the PL decode on their radio thus allowing them to listen only to that repeater. Although PL is often used to describe this function, the more generic term for this feature is CTCSS.