Voice Communications - The Phonetic Alphabet

In almost all radio communications, there is the chance for poor signals, reducing the clarity of a station's signal. This is true for police, fire, other dispatch services, and even amateur radio operators.

A phonetic alphabet is a great way of spelling things out in the presence of a poor signal. Where someone might not be able to understand single letters, they might be able to understand enough of a word to be able to determine what letter that word stands for.

Many radio users come up with non-standard phonetics. An example is a ham who is local to me who recently changed their callsign. Their old callsign was KV4AP, and they changed the AP to use the phonetics Apple Pie. Phonetics like this certainly stand out if you're in a pileup and you're trying to get the attention of the station you're trying to contact. Many police and fire departments also use a set of phonetics, typically names of people, for their phonetic alphabet. However, there is a standard set of phonetics that are preferred to be used, especially in emergency amateur radio communications.

This set of phonetics is the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) phonetics, and is used in amateur radio, as well as many other forms of radio communications. The chart below covers the ITU phonetics for each letter in the alphabet.

A alfa B bravo C charlie D delta E echo F foxtrot G golf H hotel I india J juliet K kilo L lima M mike N november O oscar P papa Q quebec R romeo S sierra T tango U uniform V victor W whiskey X x-ray Y yankee Z zulu