The ATC environment is very different from the ham environment. Being
channelized, they don't suffer much from QRM and SNR is usually pretty
good so it's just a matter of distinguishing between sound-alike
letters. Alpha and Delta in this environment sound quite different.
Now move to the contest environment where a couple of little pistols are
trying to make a Q where the SNR is only a couple of dB. Alpha and
Delta both sound like "mumble-uh" and you simply cannot distinguish
between them, now matter how clear the enunciation. So, you can lose
the Q or, if the sending op understands the problem and says "America
Denmark" you can make the Q which may be a double mult. I've done this
hundreds of times, as has most everyone else. I don't understand why a
contester would willingly throw away makeable Qs in deference to a
standard which was designed for a different environment.
Here's another one. When I first got back into contesting in 2000 I
could never figure out the prefix for the Papa Shanky 4 guys so I missed
out on a bunch of Qs. When they started saying Papa Yellow 4 it became
clear that they had problems saying Yankee. Similarly, a number of JAs
have problems with the English pronunciation of some of the phonetics.
Even with a 20 dB SNR it can be pretty tough to make out who they are.
So, yes, in the ATC and similar environments, standardized phonetics are
a good thing. In the Ham environment one standard phonetic alphabet
will lower your contest scores. Why would you want to do that?
73, Jim VE7FO
Frank Hunt wrote:
>I'm with Bob, one standard is enough. I wonder what sort of chaos
>would result on the Air Traffic freqs if pilots used their own
>personal favourite phonetic instead of the standard ones.
>
>
>
>
>
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