and while it came to mean best regards, it was a way of signing or ending 
the traffic...a 7 and a 3 in CW are kind of mirrors of each other...so I 
suspect the idea was no more than using something that sounded neat and was 
easy to send and that would be taken as best regards...as using the phrase 
best regards went out of fashion many many years ago in common writing.
The guy who came up with a hold over from the CB erra is wrong on two 
counts, firstly that it isn't, and secondly, just because he no longer uses 
cb and got his ham ticket, doesn't mean no one still uses the CB band...in 
fact, it's very much alive and well in the US...so how could it be a hold 
over from something that hasn't gone away?
Obviously the logic hamsters weren't running too quickly in his head when he 
came up with that hi hi.

73
Colin, V A6BKX
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Gary Tillinghast" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2014 7:39 PM
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: 73 debate

> Hi all, Got into this on a local repeater one night.  The phrase 73  =
> means what?  I have had some say it means =E2=80=9CBest =
> regards=E2=80=9D.  Others say it is a hold over from the =
> =E2=80=9CCB=E2=80=9D days which means =E2=80=9CHave a nice day=E2=80=9D. =
> Which is wright???  Gary KB2YAA