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Old April 18th 07, 06:56 PM posted to rec.aviation.piloting,rec.aviation.student
Erik
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Posts: 166
Default Why so many abbreviations in NOTAMs, etc.?

Mxsmanic wrote:

Why are so many things abbreviated in NOTAMs and other similar documents?
Even words that aren't very long to begin with are often abbreviated, saving
only a letter or two. I can't think of any situation today in which bandwidth
would be so severely limited that saving a letter or two would make a
difference, so I assume there is some historical reason for the abbreviations.
Were such messages transmitted by Morse code or something in the past, or is
someone still transmitting them that way (or over some other extremely slow
channel) today?


I was told that the fewer characters transmitted, the more
cost-effective it became.

I was hoping that in this age of the internet, they would change this
before I had to take my written (no luck). I passed it anyway, but I'm
certain that part of the questions I got wrong were for the stupid
weather reading.