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,

I'm certain someone will do better, but in all the movies I've seen, going
back to mouldy oldies, it's related to communications. Usually: I read you
five by five.

Somehow I got the impression it was the strength of the signal by the clarity
of what was coming through, but that may have just been my imagination.

The_Beast

> Hello,
 I
> thought that I've also heard the term in another SF movie (Aliens,

Ferro the dropship pilot says "we're in the pipe, five by five" as the
dropship heads down to LV-426.

The security guards here at work also say it during radio checks, however,
I've never heard it in the UK.

Five by Five is a commo man's term which rates Signal Strength and Clarity on
a scale of one to five, so five by five is a techie way of saying LOUD ad
CLEAR.

Los
(ex-18E Special Operations Communications NCO, among other things)

> Nathan Pettigrew wrote:

> Hello,

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 R ranges from 0 to 5 whilst S & T
elements range from 0 to 9. 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 S9 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-----

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-----