Alpha, Bravo, Charile. Military Alphabet Code and LEO Code

I think it's mostly because the newer generation isn't taught to use proper radio procedure and if they are, they ignore it as much as possible and use slang. It used to drive me crazy because my initial job was as a dispatcher and we had a lot of that drilled into us. Along with knowing what a 2175 control tone was, and DC control of remote transmitters. And "Pro words".

Now the dispatchers are just radio clerks, they read the screen in front of them. Which has spread to the field since the dispatchers can't enforce proper radio procedure because they don't know it.

Not to mention that they can't even pronounce common street names. Which in the Northeast often are not pronounced as they are spelled.

We were once dispatched to Ronniekey street. Neither my partner nor I had heard of it and we both knew the city pretty well. In those pre MDT days I had to ask the dispatcher to spell the street.

"Ronniekey, Capital R-O-A-N-O-K-E, Ronniekey."

Oh, that.
 
All I know is Tango Uniform and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. My fellow bussies like to say 10-4 a lot. I just use 10-9 ("please repeat, I didn't understand a !@#$%^& word you said.") and 10-3000 ("weapon on the school bus").
 
I just wanna know why they changed.

Used to was Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox - and now it's Alpha, Bravo, Charlie (didn't change that one, for some reason), Delta, Echo, Foxtrot.

Why? Must have been lots of fun for the folks that had been doing it for years and years, when the change went in.

And, you know, Whisky Papa just don't sound the same as Willie Pete.

Sgt. Rock of Echo Company? :confused: Huh??
 
I think that even the military has changed over the years. Back in the '50's we used Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox,....Xray, Young, Zebra. It was a hold over from WWII and Korea so I don't know when it changed. I still fall back on that old memory when I have to use phonetics; understanding me is the problem of the receiver but most of them seem to pick it up.

When I don't understand someone, I have a hard time not responding: "Say again, last transmission". Saying "Repeat" just gives me nightmares that some old artilleryman will hear me.

Bob

Looks like Alpo had the same thought I did.
B
 
Alpo said:
I just wanna know why they changed.

Used to was Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox - and now it's Alpha, Bravo, Charlie (didn't change that one, for some reason), Delta, Echo, Foxtrot.

Why? Must have been lots of fun for the folks that had been doing it for years and years, when the change went in.

And, you know, Whisky Papa just don't sound the same as Willie Pete.

Sgt. Rock of Echo Company? :confused: Huh??
Click to expand...

Easy Company does have a better sound than Echo Company...

In my current role as an ROTC instructor, I taught a class on this a few weeks ago. Until 1941 or so, all services (or I guess both services) used their own phonetic alphabet. Then we adopted a joint alphabet which was immortalized by WW II movies. Then in '56 or '57 we adopted a NATO standard alphabet so all those Europeans could join in the fun.

Why don't LEOs use it? Why should they? As long as everyone can communicate, then does it really matter? The agency from which I am on Mil Leave used 10 codes and signals, then went away for a while, but has been back for over 10 years. I always liked that I could easily communicate with another officer that someone was wanted, armed, drunk, or had drugs without blurting it out. It allowed us to keep more control over a situation.
 
My agency used sort of a mix. But honestly, with the last few years on the 800 mhz. radio band, communication was so cellphone-clear that much of it was unnecessary. Not like the old days of static-y VHF or UHF radio.
 
I have never had to use any of the phonetic alphabets. But I remember spending hours as a twelve year old reading Dad's WWII Bluejacket's Manual and trying to memorize the Morse code, phonetic alphabet and learning knots.
 
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Several years ago I saw the anti-clarity alphabet code. Do not remember much of it but sort of like..
A=aeon, C=ceramic, D=Djibouti, M=mnemonic, O=oesophagus, P=pneumonia or psoriasis...
You get the idea. It's how you confuse the enemy when you spell out a word using the code. Try using those in an LEO situation.
 
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Should make all these whippersnappers learn morse, AND semaphore. Then make 'em shut up for a month or two.....
get off my lawn. That's Golf Oscar Mike Lima!
 
I'm all about the military phonetics. I'm the guy I'm most important to and that is why my opinion matters......:) LOL
 
K1500 said:
Ham radio uses the NATO phonetics as well.
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The NATO style has become the world standard. It is used by the LE community in the UK.

As for some of the modern radios, I'm not always convinced that they help that much, especially some of the digital systems that convert your voice into vocoder speech. Sure, it is spectrally efficient and easily encrypted, but is it any more understandable? I feel that vocoder speech lacks certain cues that we are used to in listening to somebody talk. I'm sure you get used to it, but a panacea for communication it is not.

The way the brain processes speech is pretty subtle at times and leads to apparently crazy answers. A few years ago there was some work done on intelligibility of comms bandwidth speech in narrow band FM systems and the results were surprising and often way out of line with what a signal to noise meter would tell you. When you get into the effects of strict radio procedure and using a phonetic alphabet things become very hard to quantify.
 
I am glad that LAPD uses the Adam, Boy, Charlie system. Otherwise, the Adam 12 program would be called Alpha 12. Doesn't really swing. On MASH, the nurses were named after the old (pre NATO) military Phonetic Alphabet. Remember Nurse Baker?
All of the NATO country's did quite a bit of testing to make sure they chose the words that gave the best accuracy when used by people speaking different languages.
The Royal Navy used a phonetic alphabet as early as WW1. It was the Apples, Butter, Charlie, Duff system.

73,
Romeo India Charlie Kilo
Kilo 7 Mike Whiskey
 
Those things acquired as a means of survival have a tendency to endure, especially in us military dorks. That's delta Oscar romeo kilo sierra.
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Won't help you survive very long in a back alley in America when you need help and revert to some communications system you learned from another organization and the guy you're trying to communicate with doesn't understand you. It's all about effective communication and the "modern" law enforcement way of doing it is just as efficient as anything I've heard over the radio coming from guys reverting to military or other systems trying to communicate with conventionally-trained police guys.
 
K1500 said:
Ham radio uses the NATO phonetics as well.
Click to expand...

Actually, on ham radio you're likely to hear some very creative, very non-standard phonetics. I had a friend who's call was W0TLX...he used to indentify himself; "W0TLX; tangerines, lemons and ex-lax. Does that move you?" W0OJD was W-zero-old junk dealer...and so on.
 
I remember my Daddy telling me about a young lady ham he knew in Georgia, whose call was WDPG. She was Dixie's Prettiest Girl.

Mama told me that when we first moved here, back in '57, the local TV station was brand new and always having "technical difficulties". They are now WJHG, but back then they were WJDM, and folks said that meant "Wait Justa Damn Minute".
 
It's Alpha, Bravo, Charlie here for me too. We were told there is only one way to say phonetics and if we did it wrong we could do 10,000 push-ups. :(

They said it was derived from the most effective words to understand under not-so-good transmission. You didn't say Echo for E and Gecko for G for a reason. Charlie and Harley were not C and H respectively. There is a method to the madness.

So I did what I was told. When I transitioned to being a pilot, we used the same phonetics, but wow did I hear some goofy stuff on the radio. Especially from the heavies at their home airport...
 
Ham radio ops, also used the military style phonetics. It still drives me nut to hear some of the PD'S and Sheriffs use their chopped up phonetics.

When I am on the air (which is rarely) I still try to stick to the military style.
A alpha
B bravo
C Charlie
D Delta
E Echo
F Foxtrot
G Golf
H Hotel
I India
J Juliet, Etc Etc.

Kind-a reminds me of the huge influx of CB'ers we had in Ham radio some years ago and trying to substitute the 10 codes for Q codes.
 
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