Talk:Radiotelephony procedure

Seperate pages for single expressions
Five by five, Mayday, roger, wilco, and co. all need to come over here. Any air cadet or civil air patrolman or similar knows they don't merit separate articles. Yes, no, cancel? I'm going to add to the others anyway until I get thoughts on the merger. --Fighter 07:01, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Mayday deserves its own page -- as does SOS -- because they're both words known to the general public and found in many dictionaries. The other words are more specialized, known primarily to the CAP/military/police communities; I agree that those could be merged (with a link or redirect to to merged entry). 204.194.80.20

Receiver called three times
By Angelo:

This from the article 'Albacore: Bronwyn, Bronwyn, Bronwyn* this is Albacore, over. (*3×1, repeating the receiver's callsign 3 times, and the sender's once, is very amateur sounding:[citation needed]' is wrong.

The receiver is always mentioned three times, regardless if you address another ship, a radio station or call MAYDAY.

I don't get why people who obviously have no radio certification dare to edit the main page ...

188.99.225.131 (talk) 00:56, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Roger vs. Wilco, Over vs. Out
I don't agree with your statements that "roger wilco" and "over and out" amount to saying the same thing twice. Regardless of how people may define them now, their original meanings were quite clear:

Roger = understood Wilco = will comply

Over = I have finished speaking (with the implication that the conversation is continuing) Out = I am ending the conversation

Neither of these pairs is in any way mutually exclusive.

Rejoinder: When I served as an artillery RTO (radio telephone operator) in the Army National Guard, "over" meant that the frequency was open for the other station to reply, and "out" meant that your station was signing off. Thus, "over and out" is a contradiction in terms, because it would mean: "go ahead and reply, but I am not listening." NelsonLB 07:51, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


 * You may wish to edit Roger_Wilco in that case. Astrolox 20:33, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Edit by Angelo:

Why do explain what Over means and what Out means and then you conclude: they are not exclusive? Ofc they are exclusive! Either you want the conversation to continue: OVER, or you want to "hang up", OUT. People editing pages like this should at least have a radio license like SRC or an equivalent one for small air planes ...

188.99.225.131 (talk) 00:48, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Radio Code words: Topic overlap
This came off the "radio code words" page Radio Communication Procedure Words

Source: from Federal Standard 1037C and MIL-STD-188 and Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms and the UNHCR Procedure for Radio Communication


 * SOS is a general distress call used by ships and aircraft worldwide. It was created in the early days of radio telegraphy, because of its simple Morse code structure ( ... --- ... ) and subsequently the backronym Save Our Souls was coined.

Edited by Angelo:

That is wrong. The correct word for "distress" is MAYDAY. SOS is only still in use if the only thing you have is Morse.

188.99.225.131 (talk) 00:50, 10 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Mayday is a general distress call, similar to SOS, though it's generally used in voice communication. Some say it's from the French m'aidez, meaning simply 'help me'. However, many official sources say it's made up as it is easy to remember, understand, and cannot be mixed up with other words. Do not use the keyword MAYDAY unless you are aboard a vessel or aircraft which is in immediate danger of sinking or crashing.


 * Roger, a term used to acknowledge a radio transmission. Can also be used in direct conversation, such as between pilot and co-pilot.


 * WILCO, means "I have received and understood your message and will comply (Only used by the addressee)"


 * Say Again, a term that requests the sender repeat all of the last transmission. ('Repeat' should not be used for this purpose, as it is used to request a second, identical artillery barrage.)


 * Words Twice, requests the sender to double the pronunciation of each word. eg. I I have have your your dog dog. Usually used when the signal is poor.


 * SitRep, Lit. 'Situation Report'. Eg. 'What's your sitrep?' or 'Sitrep to follow'. Sitrep will include information on position, movement status, direction of move, casualty status, etc.


 * Over, a term used to indicate one has finished talking, and implies a response is expected. Early radio systems used just one channel for talking and receiving. Neither party could transmit and receive at the same time, so control of the conversation has to be handed over. This allows a rudimentary but effective form of manual Handshaking.


 * Out, a term used to end a transmission (never properly used with OVER).


 * Ten-Four or "10-4", another term used to acknowledge transmissions. It is one of the Ten-codes made popular during the CB craze of the 1970s.

I think it belongs here instead, and the other page actually deserves to go, but I'm n00b and don't know how to do it.

Tower and aircraft names in example
I'm confused by the choice of tower and aircraft names ("Binary" and "Hexadecimal") in the example. Are these names chosen to imply additional meaning, that is "Hexadecimal 35F" should be translated by the reader into decimal 863? If they're just meant to be names, then please use something more generic.

15.243.169.71 17:54, 5 June 2007 (UTC) Over to you ROGER IS SICK! or Roger out 86.140.79.44 18:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Edited by Angelo:

35F is not a "hexadecimal" number. It is simply a call sign. However you are right, it makes not much sense. In maritim radio a call sign always is either 4 'digits' or 6 'digits' long and always starts with a letter! The letter is indicating the nationality. E.g. German call signs for ships always start with 'D'

No idea how that is regulated in air traffic, but I would bet for most nations the call sign also will start with either a letter indicating the nation, or possible the airline.

188.99.225.131 (talk) 01:14, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Out versus Clear
At least in my ARES group training, there was a distinction between out and clear - out meant that the conversation was over, clear meant not only the conversation was over but that you would no longer be monitoring the frequency. Was that just our groups weirdness, or general practice? Psu256 (talk) 15:27, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

British Military Example
Removed words message and send as this is old voice procedure and no longer used. Going to amend more later. Will include ore realistic call signs, drop call signs after first message and response. Also an all stations call should always end in out not over. Think this should prob be changed to CC1 call. Stupidstudent (talk) 03:58, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Also on a radio check zero should never say difficult. It's his call if the station is ok to work with or needs to sort his radio out. Sorry if it seems like I a being anal but I am a trained signaller in the British army. If nobody objects I might redo this whole section some time soon Stupidstudent (talk) 04:07, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Woops i cant even spell british maybe I'll leave the editing till I've had more sleep. Stupidstudent (talk) 04:11, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Other: Good idea - CC1 is a better idea to use for example callsign. Please redo.

Can I add something here? I believe the old type voice procedures should be covered as well and examples cited, as an aide to researchers. For instance, I thought I recalled seeing a statement in this article that claimed the term "Roger" wasn't actually used by the military, especially the USAF. It was (we used it as part of our radio procedure when talking to ATC or an Airborne controller). If we were in flight of two to four aircraft, a lot of the confusing (to civilians and non-flyers) was actually not used, and we used plain English, first names or callsigns.

Out vs. Out of service/Unavailable and Phonetics
Around here (in Ohio) on the public safety bands, "out" is hardly ever used to mean "I'm done transmitting." "Clear" is mostly used, and there are variations. The station terminating the call may say, "I'm clear," as in, "I'm done transmitting and I have no more traffic." He may also say, "That's clear," or "You're clear," with the implication that "I understand your message, and I have no further traffic."

The bigger issue here is with the use of "out." A routine traffic stop may being as follows:

Officer: "Nine-Sam-Twenty-Three, traffic stop." Dispatcher: "Nine-Sam-Twenty-Three, go ahead with your plate." Officer: "Nine-Sam-Twenty-Three, I'm out with Ohio passenger/commercial/personalized/etc. Adam Boy Charles David Edward Frank ..." Dispatcher: "Nine-Sam-Twenty-Three, that's clear, standby."

Note the usage of "out" here doesn't mean "done transmitting," it is short for "out of service," or "out on a stop." I hear this used primarily for traffic stops, but also pedestrian stops (i.e., "I'm out with one at the corner of 12th and Vine." In this context, "out" is used to notify the dispatchers that this officer is already responding to a call or is otherwise preoccupied.

70.62.254.122 (talk) 22:49, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Vote against merging
I disagree that this page should be merged. The topic of procedure words is sufficiently unique and poorly understood that merely placing it as a subsection of another page will diminish its visibility and make it harder to find and understand.

I can understand, however, based on the current content of this page, how someone might come to the opposite conclusion. This page currently lacks many procedure words and some additional detail on their use. Once that is incorporated, I think it will become clear that the procedure words page is sufficiently unique to stand on its own and be referenced by the voice procedures page.

Also, I find the voice procedures page to be lacking much detail as well. It should discuss radio nets and net procedures, message handling, and a few other topics, each of which should then be covered in more detail on dedicated pages.

For PSU256: I agree with your interpretation of the meaning of clear vs. out, but have never been able to find any documentation that lists a definition for both terms, and many other amateur radio operators disagree, saying their meaning is the reverse. However, the meaning of out is clearly defined in ACP 125(F) and many other documents as meaning "end of my transmission to you; no replay necessary", with no mention of going off the air. I have heard some stations use the proword "closing" to indicate they are going off the air, and this does mesh with the proword command "close down" found in ACP 125(F) and other documents, so I would suggest "closing" as a more appropriate replacement for "clear". --Peter K. Sheerin, K6WEB (talk) 22:59, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Split by user
Should this article be split into sections for different types of phraseology, e.g. military, CB, fire/rescue, aviation, and maybe also a "common" section? &mdash; SheeEttin {T/C} 20:51, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely, yes. FWIW, I am a commercial pilot and flight instructor (Comm. SEL/MEL, CFI/CFII for the technically minded). Aviation phraseology is -entirely- standardized via the P/CG (pilot/controller glossary) in the AIM (FAA-published Aeronautical Information Manual) and, to the best of my knowledge, replicates ICAO standards with >99% fidelity. Rather than having only a singular page which profiles "voice procedures" and, correctly, handles the cases in which a) one phrase can mean >1 thing and; b) 1 meaning can be expressed in >1 phrase, it seems appropriate to dedicate one page to the considerably more austere and parsimonious phraseology from the P/CG, wherein polysemy is studiously avoided.

Were I to know the desired breadth and depth of such an article, I would write it myself - the reference(s) are crystal clear; however, I would appreciate some guidance w/r/t to the appropriate scope of said article prior to regurgitating verbatim the entire P/CG.

Hypnotic Clambake (talk) 13:45, 15 June 2010 (UTC)Hypnotic Clambake


 * We could start creating a new aviation-specific article straight away, but I think it might be best to start sorting this one out first. I suggest creating sections like SheeEttin suggested above. Starting with the "Common" one, then relegating anything specific/non-standard down into other sections. We do need sourcing for this. I have references for marine VHF and amateur radio, but not much on other specific usages. If a section becomes too big, we can then split it out based on WP:SPINOUT. That's the best way to go rather than fragmenting the big picture before we start. We should avoid what some of this seems to be - i.e. somebody's memories of the kind of things he used to hear somewhere (WP:OR) - and stick to citable sources and official recommendations. I think we need to standardise our use of typography too - bold, capitals, monospace in a box, example callsigns etc. so that it has some consistent meaning. --Nigelj (talk) 17:54, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The other place where some of the mess is, is Procedure word. Note also the suggestion to merge the two. Another thought: in that article, a lot of space is given to Mayday and other urgency calls, each of which have their own articles. --Nigelj (talk) 18:19, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Altitude Example
Quote article: (example: given a climb to 10,000 ft, the pilot replies "[Callsign] climbing to One zero, Ten Thousand")

Im my opinion it should rather be: "[Callsign] climbing altitude One Zero Tousend". The term "to" should be avoided when used together with numbers, as it can be (and has fatally been) confused with "two". For aviation the standard phrase "climb altitude nnn" has been introduced, but I cannot find the original reference. Also in my opinion 10000 ft should be read as "One Zero Tousend". Finally, altitudes above 5000 ft are traditionally measured against the standard atmosphere of 1023 hpa at sea level. This is accompanied by referring to them as flight levels. 10000 ft would therefore be "Flight Level One Zero Zero" or "Flight Level One Hundred". Msc280 (talk) 13:04, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Over and out
This is very commonly misconceived as correct voice procedure (as mentioned in a much older discussion above). But shouldn't this common misconception at least be acknowledged as such in the article? Halsteadk (talk) 20:03, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes. Indeed, that's why I came here -- to learn more about whether and to what extent the use of "Over and out" is incorrect.  Seems to me that in a specialized topic such as "Voice Procedure", this very common usage (or misusage, as the case may be) ought to be mentioned.  Why isn't it?  Captain Quirk (talk) 05:15, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Aviation examples
Would it be worth linking to articles about aircraft crashes caused principally by poor radio procedure? I'm thinking of Flying Tiger Flight 66, where the non-standard phrase "descend 2 4 0 0" was understood to be "descend to 4 0 0", and the Tenerife Disaster where the now non-standard "Taxy to position for take off" was understood as "Taxy to position and take off". 194.176.105.132 (talk) 20:29, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Use of "Copy"
In the United States Army, the phrase copy is used to confirm to the other party with proof that you understood what was transmitted to you. It is used as follows:

"You, this is me, 'here is the message', how copy, over"

"You, this is me, I copy 'here is the message', over/out" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.163.80.2 (talk) 16:28, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
 * As with most of the comments and suggestions above, what we really need for this article is citable sources per WP:V. Online current training manuals, other text where on-air traffic is reliably reported etc. Those would be good. --Nigelj (talk) 16:51, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Vote against merging--major restructuring needed
I vote against merging.

This article is a mish-mash of procedure words from various services, along with some example on-air language, but does not contain a solid description of voice procedure that matches that taught in any radio service.

Instead, the content should have the elements of voice procedure common to all radio services added, such as Calling, Break-in procedure, passing messages, emergency communications, etc., and then the merge re-evaluated.

I believe at that point, it will be determined that it will be appropriate to maintain the aeronautical phraseology as a separate article, and perhaps add new articles for the other radio services. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PetesGuide (talk • contribs) 19:41, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Standby vs. Stand By
Is "standby" a single word (as in the noun, "on standby") or should it be two words (as in the verb, "to stand by")? — Loadmaster (talk) 22:07, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

CALLSIGN-ACTUAL source?
I'm about to remove all the unsourced content under Procedure words and replace it with the list from ACP125, and in looking at the current list, one in particular stands out as being one I have heard in movies, but I haven't found a source for. Can someone find a source to cite so this can be added back in? CALLSIGN-ACTUAL/CALLSIGN-NINER — Sometimes an individual (generally a superior) may have a person monitor the network for them. Saying "actual" after their callsign asserts you wish to speak to the specific person the callsign is attached to. ex: calling the callsign "Headquarters" would often get junior clerk or similar. Calling (or identifying yourself as) "Headquarters-Actual" would indicate that the commander of the headquarters detachment, and thus the entire unit to which it is attached, is requested to be spoken to, or is actually speaking. (In Canadian use, this is Callsign-Niner, with "9" designating a unit commander. An individual monitoring the net but is not the actual commander may use the call-sign "Niner-Zulu". As well, the codeword "Sunray" is also used to designate a unit commander.) PetesGuide (talk) (K6WEB) 02:18, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Spelling
Actual actually bicycle breathe century decide describe disappear exercise favourite length library peculiar position possess possession probably recent reign sentence separate strength surprise therefor various 2A00:23C4:4C09:AE01:9424:96D:12CF:1A6C (talk) 18:18, 29 April 2024 (UTC)