Hi.

The first character is a double dash.  It's a kind of filler something like
"Your RST is 599 (double dash), the QTH is Lexington, KY (double dash)"

The second is AS combined into a single character.  It stands for Please
Wait.  Usually after this character you'll hear a pause from the other
station.

Another couple of character combinations that are often used are SK, which
means end transmission, which you send at the end of the QSO.  AR which
means end of transmission, and it's your turn to send.

Here's some trivia for you.  As you probably are aware, the international
distress code is SOS.  What you may not know is the characters of this code
are sent all together as one character, rather than each letter separately.
Using a period as the dit and a dash as the dah, the combination looks like
this

...---...

Just some things you may like to know.

Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.

Kevin Minor, Lexington, KY
[log in to unmask]