Phonetics on a PD channel was always Adam, Baker, Charley, David,,,,when I dispatched. Never was the Military style used. It's just the way it was done and the way it was passed along. That was 2 different dept's and a 911 center.
When I first started dispatching, 10-codes were in use. Every Dept. had their own variation of what each meant, though a few were common meaning between dept's.
The City PD had the greatest use of them,,something like a total of 60 separate 10-codes.
A few were rarely used,,some were administrative use. The others were constant & common occurance and became your language.
It was easy to dispatch using nothing but 10-codes, car numbers, street names & numbers, ect.
With 1 dispatcher to a primary dispatch channel (2 primarys) each loaded w/ 50+ cars,,you needed all the short cuts for air time you could get.
The system worked very well though. Kind of an organized chaos.
Then they went to 'plain language' dispatch when the change over to 911 went into effect. Gone were the 'CR Cards',,the card track and card boxes, time stamps, ect.
All on a computer key board now and everything stretched out in unsimplified plain language. Since the 'event types' (type of call) was in a plain language on the computer it was to be dispatched that way.
More than a couple dispatchers got the nick-name of 'story lady' for their wordy way over the air when we went to plain language.
..and later on,,every once in a while a veteran Officer made a newer dispatcher freeze by calling out w/a plate #, a location and a rapid string of 10-codes no one's used in the last 10 years..
No one likes to change
But it all worked out though.
