“Have to be” is a pretty strong verbiage… but like the others have said, it’s about both parties already knowing the alphanumeric replacement of choice. That’s why any military boy will roll their eyes and probably have some silly comment if you start using random words like apple, boy, or dennis.
Civilian side radio users, like fire, ems, or police, have a different one
spoiler
Adam, Boy, Charles, David, Edward, Frank, George, Henry, Ida, John, King, LIncoln, Mary, Nora, Ocean, Paul, Queen, Robert, Sam, Tom, Union, Victor, William, X-ray, Young, Zebra; if you were curious
that they use, and you’ll always hear someone firing back on the radio about not calling in an airstrike when a former military member slips up and uses the military version.
Civilian side radio users, like fire, ems, or police, have a different one
911 dispatcher here- pretty much everywhere around me uses the NATO phonetics, except one neighboring county that I’m pretty sure doesn’t use any sort of standardized phonetics at all, or at least their officers and dispatchers and such can’t be bothered to use it.
Things aren’t totally standardized across the country though, different 10-codes (or no 10-codes at all,) different terminology, different phonetic alphabets, etc.
There’s some old timers around my county who have been around forever who tend to fall back into other systems from time to time, or people occasionally have a brain fart and have to spit out something different on the spot.
I’m pretty sure APCO at least strongly recommends using the NATO alphabet.
I think every service in the eastern half of my state uses the one I listed, and it’s probably about a 90/10 split on plain english / 10 codes. Most of the 10 code usage is in the extremely rural areas. And god, don’t get me started on 10 codes not being standardized. At least most of the major things seemed to be close. I haven’t traveled to the western side for work, so can’t speak to there. It is definitely interesting how things shake out in regards to agencies following recommendations.
“Have to be” is a pretty strong verbiage… but like the others have said, it’s about both parties already knowing the alphanumeric replacement of choice. That’s why any military boy will roll their eyes and probably have some silly comment if you start using random words like apple, boy, or dennis.
Civilian side radio users, like fire, ems, or police, have a different one
spoiler
Adam, Boy, Charles, David, Edward, Frank, George, Henry, Ida, John, King, LIncoln, Mary, Nora, Ocean, Paul, Queen, Robert, Sam, Tom, Union, Victor, William, X-ray, Young, Zebra; if you were curious
that they use, and you’ll always hear someone firing back on the radio about not calling in an airstrike when a former military member slips up and uses the military version.
911 dispatcher here- pretty much everywhere around me uses the NATO phonetics, except one neighboring county that I’m pretty sure doesn’t use any sort of standardized phonetics at all, or at least their officers and dispatchers and such can’t be bothered to use it.
Things aren’t totally standardized across the country though, different 10-codes (or no 10-codes at all,) different terminology, different phonetic alphabets, etc.
There’s some old timers around my county who have been around forever who tend to fall back into other systems from time to time, or people occasionally have a brain fart and have to spit out something different on the spot.
I’m pretty sure APCO at least strongly recommends using the NATO alphabet.
I think every service in the eastern half of my state uses the one I listed, and it’s probably about a 90/10 split on plain english / 10 codes. Most of the 10 code usage is in the extremely rural areas. And god, don’t get me started on 10 codes not being standardized. At least most of the major things seemed to be close. I haven’t traveled to the western side for work, so can’t speak to there. It is definitely interesting how things shake out in regards to agencies following recommendations.