The Banana Boat Swing and Other Distinctive 'Fists' (1996)

RST = “readability, strength, tone” ... a 3 digit number used by hobbyists to exchange information about the quality of a radio signal being received.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-S-T_system

From 2005, my second-favorite old spark’s sea story: “Don’t send QRQ to SUQ”:

http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/2005-11/msg00453.htm...

(My favorite being a first hand account from W3HUV who by chance happened to be the first op to answer: “SOS DE ICEH”, and was therefore by international law in charge of emergency communications. ICEH being the call sign of the Andrea Doria.)