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91-654: The International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet or simply the Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet , commonly known as the NATO phonetic alphabet , is the most widely used set of clear-code words for communicating the letters of the Roman alphabet. Technically a radiotelephonic spelling alphabet , it goes by various names, including NATO spelling alphabet , ICAO phonetic alphabet , and ICAO spelling alphabet . The ITU phonetic alphabet and figure code
182-512: A ] [ aː ] [ ɑ ] [ ɑː ] [ ə ] . The DIN consolidated all six into the single low-central vowel [a] . The DIN vowels are partly predictable, with [ ɪ ɛ ɔ ] in closed syllables and [ i e / ei̯ o ] in open syllables apart from echo and sierra , which have [ɛ] as in English, German and Italian. The DIN also reduced the number of stressed syllables in bravo and x-ray , consistent with
273-450: A PNR via direct entry into a terminal window (as opposed to using a graphical interface). The following codes are standard across all CRSs based on the original PARS system: The majority of airlines and travel agencies choose to host their PNR databases with a computer reservations system (CRS) or global distribution system (GDS) company such as Sabre , Galileo , Worldspan and Amadeus . Some privacy organizations are concerned at
364-424: A PNR was first introduced by airlines that needed to exchange reservation information in case passengers required flights of multiple airlines to reach their destination (" interlining "). For this purpose, IATA and ATA have defined standards for interline messaging of PNR and other data through the "ATA/IATA Reservations Interline Message Procedures - Passenger" (AIRIMP). There is no general industry standard for
455-731: A credit agreement or confirm stock codes), although ad-hoc code words are often used in that instance. It has been used by information technology workers to communicate serial numbers and reference codes, which are often very long, by voice. Most major airlines use the alphabet to communicate passenger name records (PNRs) internally, and in some cases, with customers. It is often used in a medical context as well. Several codes words and sequences of code words have become well-known, such as Bravo Zulu (letter code BZ) for "well done", Checkpoint Charlie (Checkpoint C) in Berlin, and Zulu Time for Greenwich Mean Time or Coordinated Universal Time . During
546-408: A low level of intelligibility, but that most of the deficiencies could be remedied by the judicious selection of words from the commercial codes and those tested by the laboratory. In a few instances where none of the 250 words could be regarded as especially satisfactory, it was believed possible to discover suitable replacements. Other words were tested and the most intelligible ones were compared with
637-424: A new spelling alphabet. The directions of ICAO were that "To be considered, a word must: After further study and modification by each approving body, the revised alphabet was adopted on 1 November 1951 , to become effective on 1 April 1952 for civil aviation (but it may not have been adopted by any military). Problems were soon found with this list. Some users believed that they were so severe that they reverted to
728-558: A popular choice, and the First Name Alphabet came into common use. Spelling alphabets are especially useful when speaking in a noisy environment when clarity and promptness of communication is essential, for example during two-way radio communication between an aircraft pilot and air traffic control , or in military operations. Whereas the names of many letters sound alike, the set of replacement words can be selected to be as distinct from each other as possible, to minimise
819-497: A set of names given to data bytes for the purpose of spelling out binary data in a clear and unambiguous way via a voice channel. Many unofficial spelling alphabets are in use that are not based on a standard, but are based on words the transmitter can remember easily, including first names , states, or cities. The LAPD phonetic alphabet has many first names. The German spelling alphabet ("Deutsches Funkalphabet" (literally "German Radio Alphabet")) also uses first names. Also, during
910-487: A single wire with earth return , which made them subject to inadvertent and deliberate interference. Spelling alphabets were introduced for wire telephony as well as on the newer radio voice equipment. Commercial and international telephone and radiotelephone spelling alphabets. (Harald prior 1960) (Etta prior 1960) (Sjua prior 1960) The later NATO phonetic alphabet evolved from the procedures of several different Allied nations during World War II, including: For
1001-803: A spelling alphabet for telephone networks, while ITU-R was involved in the development of radiotelephony spelling alphabets. Even though both of these groups were part of the same ITU, and thus part of the UN, their alphabets often differed from each other. Uniquely, the 1908 Tasmanian telegraph operator's code was designed to be memorized as follows: Englishmen Invariably Support High Authority Unless Vindictive. The Managing Owners Never Destroy Bills. Remarks When Loose Play Jangling. Fractious Galloping Zigzag Knights eXpeditely Capture Your Queen. In World War I battle lines were relatively static and forces were commonly linked by wired telephones. Signals could be weak on long wire runs and field telephone systems often used
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#17327808959931092-577: A spelling alphabet. The US adopted the Joint Army/Navy radiotelephony alphabet during 1941 to standardize systems among all branches of its armed forces. The US alphabet became known as Able Baker after the words for A and B. The Royal Air Force adopted one similar to the United States one during World War II as well. Other British forces adopted the RAF radio alphabet , which is similar to
1183-496: A technical point of view, there are five parts of a PNR required before the booking can be completed. They are: Other information, such as a timestamp and the agency's pseudo-city code , will go into the booking automatically. All entered information will be retained in the "history" of the booking. Once the booking has been completed to this level, the CRS will issue a unique all alpha or alpha-numeric record locator, which will remain
1274-487: Is a rarely used variant that differs in the code words for digits. Although spelling alphabets are commonly called "phonetic alphabets", they are not phonetic in the sense of phonetic transcription systems such as the International Phonetic Alphabet . To create the code, a series of international agencies assigned 26 clear-code words (also known as "phonetic words") acrophonically to
1365-457: Is also often called a phonetic alphabet , especially by amateur radio enthusiasts, recreational sailors in the US and Australia, and NATO military organizations, despite this usage of the term producing a naming collision with the usage of the same phrase in phonetics to mean a notation used for phonetic transcription or phonetic spelling , such as the International Phonetic Alphabet , which
1456-418: Is in most European languages because the spelling Alpha may not be pronounced properly by native speakers of some languages – who may not know that ph should be pronounced as f . The spelling Juliett is used rather than Juliet for the benefit of French speakers, because they may otherwise treat a single final t as silent. For similar reasons, Charlie and Uniform have alternative pronunciations where
1547-408: Is occasional regional substitution of a few code words, such as replacing them with earlier variants, to avoid confusion with local terminology. Spelling alphabet A spelling alphabet ( also called by various other names ) is a set of words used to represent the letters of an alphabet in oral communication , especially over a two-way radio or telephone . The words chosen to represent
1638-403: Is often desired by both the airlines and the travel agent to ensure efficient travel. This includes: In more recent times, many governments now require the airline to provide further information included assisting investigators tracing criminals or terrorists. These include: The components of a PNR are identified internally in a CRS by a one-character code. This code is often used when creating
1729-447: Is preceded and followed by the words "as a number" spoken twice. The ITU adopted the IMO phonetic spelling alphabet in 1959, and in 1969 specified that it be "for application in the maritime mobile service only". Pronunciation was not defined prior to 1959. For the post-1959 phonetics, the underlined syllable of each letter word should be emphasized, and each syllable of the code words for
1820-462: Is present, as is commonly the case with radio and telephonic communication. For instance, the target message "proceed to map grid DH98" would be transmitted as proceed to map grid Delta-Hotel-Niner-Ait . Civilian industry uses the code words to avoid similar problems in the transmission of messages by telephone systems. For example, it is often used in the retail industry where customer or site details are conveyed by telephone (for example to authorize
1911-582: Is rendered as one seven and 60 as six zero . Depending on context, the word thousand may be used as in English, and for whole hundreds only (when the sequence 00 occurs at the end of a number), the word hundred may be used. For example, 1300 is read as one three zero zero if it is a transponder code or serial number, and as one thousand three hundred if it is an altitude or distance. The ICAO, NATO, and FAA use modifications of English digits as code words, with 3, 4, 5 and 9 being pronounced tree , fower (rhymes with lower ), fife and niner . The digit 3
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#17327808959932002-508: Is specified as tree so that it will not be mispronounced sri (and similarly for thousand ); the long pronunciation of 4 (still found in some English dialects) keeps it somewhat distinct from for ; 5 is pronounced with a second "f" because the normal pronunciation with a "v" is easily confused with "fire"; and 9 has an extra syllable to keep it distinct from the German word nein "no". (Prior to 1956, three and five had been pronounced with
2093-645: Is the ICAO International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet , also known as the NATO phonetic alphabet, which is used for Roman letters. Spelling alphabets also exist for Greek and for Russian . Spelling alphabets are called by various names, according to context. These synonyms include spelling alphabet , word-spelling alphabet , voice procedure alphabet , radio alphabet , radiotelephony alphabet , telephone alphabet , and telephony alphabet . A spelling alphabet
2184-521: Is used to indicate the sounds of human speech. The names of the letters of the English alphabet are "a", "bee", "cee", "dee", "e", etc. These can be difficult to discriminate, particularly over a limited-bandwidth and noisy communications channel, hence the use in aviation and by armed services of unambiguous substitute names for use in electrical voice communication such as telephone and radio. A large number of spelling alphabets have been developed over
2275-460: The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International . The APCO first suggested that its Procedure and Signals Committee work out a system for a "standard set of words representing the alphabet should be used by all stations" in its April 1940 newsletter. Note: The old APCO alphabet has wide usage among Public Safety agencies nationwide, even though APCO itself deprecated
2366-719: The Directorate-General for Home Affairs (European Commission) wrote to the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) with regards to a PNR sharing agreement with Australia, a close ally of the US and signatory to the UKUSA Agreement on signals intelligence . The EDPS responded on 5 May in Letter 0420 D845 : I am writing to you in reply to your letter of 4 May concerning the two draft Proposals for Council Decisions on (i)
2457-623: The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU), the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International (APCO), and by many military organizations such as NATO (using the spelling "Xray") and the now-defunct Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). The same alphabetic code words are used by all agencies, but each agency chooses one of two different sets of numeric code words. NATO uses
2548-942: The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO); this modification then became the international standard when it was accepted by ICAO that year and by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) a few years later. The 26 code words are as follows (ICAO spellings): Alfa , Bravo , Charlie , Delta , Echo , Foxtrot , Golf , Hotel , India , Juliett , Kilo , Lima , Mike , November , Oscar , Papa , Quebec , Romeo , Sierra , Tango , Uniform , Victor , Whiskey , X-ray , Yankee , and Zulu . ⟨Alfa⟩ and ⟨Juliett⟩ are spelled that way to avoid mispronunciation by people unfamiliar with English orthography ; NATO changed ⟨X-ray⟩ to ⟨Xray⟩ for
2639-540: The Vietnam War , the US government referred to the Viet Cong guerrillas and the group itself as VC, or Victor Charlie; the name "Charlie" became synonymous with this force. The final choice of code words for the letters of the alphabet and for the digits was made after hundreds of thousands of comprehension tests involving 31 nationalities. The qualifying feature was the likelihood of a code word being understood in
2730-428: The ch is pronounced "sh" and the u is pronounced "oo". Early on, the NATO alliance changed X-ray to Xray in its version of the alphabet to ensure that it would be pronounced as one word rather than as two, while the global organization ICAO keeps the spelling X-ray . The alphabet is defined by various international conventions on radio, including: For the 1938 and 1947 phonetics, each transmission of figures
2821-408: The "Able Baker" was used by most Western countries, while the "Ana Brazil" alphabet was used by South American and Caribbean regions. Pronunciation was not defined prior to 1959. From 1959 to present, the underlined syllable of each code word for the letters should be stressed, and from 1969 to present, each syllable of the code words for the digits should be equally stressed, with the exceptions of
NATO phonetic alphabet - Misplaced Pages Continue
2912-496: The 1898 "Signalling Instruction" issued by the War Office and followed by the 1904 Signalling Regulations this system differentiated only the letters most frequently misunderstood: Ack (originally "Ak") Beer (or Bar) C D E F G H I J K L eMma N O Pip Q R eSses Toc U Vic W X Y Z. This alphabet was the origin of phrases such as "ack-ack" (A.A. for anti-aircraft ), "pip-emma" for pm and Toc H for an ex-servicemen's association. It
3003-507: The 1938 and 1947 alphabets, each transmission of figures is preceded and followed by the words "as a number" spoken twice. The ITU adopted the International Maritime Organization 's phonetic spelling alphabet in 1959, and in 1969 specified that it be "for application in the maritime mobile service only". During the late 1940s and early 1950s, there were two international aviation radio spelling alphabets,
3094-616: The 24-series. Several of these documents had revisions, and were renamed. For instance, CCBP3-2 was the second edition of CCBP3. During World War II, the US military conducted significant research into spelling alphabets. Major F. D. Handy, directorate of Communications in the Army Air Force (and a member of the working committee of the Combined Communications Board), enlisted the help of Harvard University's Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory, asking them to determine
3185-595: The CRS-GDS companies "function both as data warehouses and data aggregators, and have a relationship to travel data analogous to that of credit bureaus to financial data.". A canceled or completed trip does not erase the record since "copies of the PNRs are ‘purged’ from live to archival storage systems, and can be retained indefinitely by CRSs, airlines, and travel agencies." Further, CRS-GDS companies maintain web sites that allow almost unrestricted access to PNR data – often,
3276-448: The English consonants, but with the vowels broken into two syllables.) For directions presented as the hour-hand position on a clock, the additional numerals "ten", "eleven" and "twelve" are used with the word "o'clock". The ITU and IMO, however, specify a different set of code words. These are compounds of ICAO and Latinesque roots. The IMO's GMDSS procedures permits the use of either set of code words. There are two IPA transcriptions of
3367-545: The European Union and some other countries as “sensitive” personal data.” Despite the sensitive character of the information they contain, PNRs are generally not recognized as deserving the same privacy protection afforded to medical and financial records. Instead, they are treated as a form of commercial transaction data. On January 16, 2004, the Article 29 Working Party released their Opinion 1/2004 (WP85) on
3458-665: The GDSs, which allows sharing of the PNR. The record locators of the copied PNRs are communicated back to the CRS that owns the Master PNR, so all records remain tied together. This allows exchanging updates of the PNR when the status of trip changes in any of the CRSs. Although PNRs were originally introduced for air travel, airlines systems can now also be used for bookings of hotels , car rental , airport transfers, and train trips. From
3549-582: The Greek language, i.e. a set of names used in lieu of alphabet letters for the purpose of spelling out words. It is used by the Greek armed and emergency services. Malay (including Indonesian ) represents the letter "L" with "London", since the word lima means "five" in this language. The Russian spelling alphabet is a spelling alphabet for the Russian version of the Cyrillic alphabet . In Spanish
3640-481: The ICAO English respellings of those words and with the NATO change of spelling of x-ray to xray so that people would know to pronounce it as a single word. There is no authoritative IPA transcription of the digits. However, there are respellings into both English and French, which can be compared to clarify some of the ambiguities and inconsistencies. CCEB has code words for punctuation, including those in
3731-652: The ICAO/ITU code words for the two letters are used. In Danish and Norwegian the letters " æ ", " ø " and " å " have their own code words. In Danish Ægir , Ødis and Åse represent the three letters, while in Norwegian the three code words are Ægir , Ørnulf and Ågot for civilians and Ærlig , Østen and Åse for military personnel. Estonian has four special letters, õ , ä , ö and ü . Õnne represents õ , Ärni for ä , Ööbik for ö and Ülle for ü . In Finnish there are special code words for
NATO phonetic alphabet - Misplaced Pages Continue
3822-710: The ITU, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the United States Federal Government as Federal Standard 1037C: Glossary of Telecommunications Terms and its successors ANSI T1.523-2001 and ATIS Telecom Glossary (ATIS-0100523.2019) (all three using the spellings "Alpha" and "Juliet"), the United States Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) (using the spelling "Xray"),
3913-432: The NATO alphabet has “niner” for 9 to distinguish it better from 5 (pronounced as “fife”) and the German word “nein”. Although no radio or traditional telephone communications are involved in communicating flag signals among ships, the instructions for which flags to hoist are relayed by voice on each ship displaying flags, and whether this is done by shouting between decks, sound tubes, or sound-powered telephones , some of
4004-595: The PC of the Customs PAU officer concerned and are not entered into Australian databases. In 2010 the European Commission's Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security was split in two. The resulting bodies were the Directorate-General for Justice (European Commission) and the Directorate-General for Home Affairs (European Commission) . On 4 May 2011, Stefano Manservisi , Director-General at
4095-631: The Proposal is reduced to a single day. Such a deadline precludes the EDPS from being able to exercise its competences in an appropriate way , even in the context of a file which we have been closely following since 2007. The Article 29 Working Party document Opinion 1/2005 on the level of protection ensured in Canada for the transmission of Passenger Name Record and Advance Passenger Information from airlines (WP 103) , 19 January 2005, offers information on
4186-724: The US military's Joint Army/Navy alphabet for use by all three nations, with the result being called the US-UK spelling alphabet. It was defined in one or more of CCBP-1: Combined Amphibious Communications Instructions , CCBP3: Combined Radiotelephone (R/T) Procedure , and CCBP-7: Combined Communication Instructions. The CCB alphabet itself was based on the US Joint Army/Navy spelling alphabet. The CCBP (Combined Communications Board Publications) documents contain material formerly published in US Army Field Manuals in
4277-550: The Vietnam war, soldiers used 'Cain' instead of 'Charlie' because 'Charlie' meant Viet Cong (Charlie being short for Victor Charlie, the International alphabet spelling of the initials VC). Passenger name record A passenger name record ( PNR ) is a record in the database of a computer reservation system (CRS) that contains the itinerary for a passenger or a group of passengers travelling together. The concept of
4368-399: The advantages of standardization in contexts involving trained persons, a standard version can be convened by an organization. Many (loosely or strictly) standardized spelling alphabets exist, mostly owing to historical siloization , where each organization simply created its own. International air travel created a need for a worldwide standard. Today the most widely known spelling alphabet
4459-702: The alphabet in 1974, replacing it with the ICAO spelling alphabet. See https://www.apcointl.org and APCO radiotelephony spelling alphabet . 1967 The FCC regulations for Amateur radio state that "Use of a phonetic alphabet as an aid for correct station identification is encouraged" (47 C.F.R. § 97.119(b)(2) ), but does not state which set of words should be used. Officially the same as used by ICAO, but there are significant variations commonly used by stations participating in HF contests and DX (especially in international HF communications). The official ARRL alphabet changed over
4550-490: The amount of personal data that a PNR might contain. While the minimum data for completing a booking is quite small, a PNR will typically contain much more information of a sensitive nature. This will include the passenger's full name, date of birth, home and work address, telephone number, e-mail address, credit card details, IP address if booked online, as well as the names and personal information of emergency contacts. Designed to "facilitate easy global sharing of PNR data,"
4641-434: The author of the report to ask: Should an efficient American secretary, for example, know several alphabets—one for use on the telephone, another to talk to the telegraph operator, another to call the police, and still another for civil defense? Each word in the spelling alphabet typically replaces the name of the letter with which it starts ( acrophony ). It is used to spell out words when speaking to someone not able to see
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#17327808959934732-400: The computer reservation system it uses. This is typically one of the large global distribution systems , such as Amadeus , Sabre , or Travelport (Apollo, Galileo, and Worldspan) but if the booking is made directly with an airline the PNR can also be in the database of the airline's CRS. This PNR is called the Master PNR for the passenger and the associated itinerary. The PNR is identified in
4823-527: The conclusion and (ii) the signature of the Agreement between the European Union and Australia on the processing and transfer of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data by air carriers to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. We understand that the consultation of the EDPS takes place in the context of a fast track procedure. However, we regret that the time available for us to analyse
4914-522: The context of others. For example, Football has a higher chance of being understood than Foxtrot in isolation, but Foxtrot is superior in extended communication. Pronunciations were set out by the ICAO before 1956 with advice from the governments of both the United States and United Kingdom. To eliminate national variations in pronunciation, posters illustrating the pronunciation desired by ICAO are available. However, there remain differences in
5005-671: The governments of the United Kingdom and the United States. In the United States, the research was conducted by the USAF-directed Operational Applications Laboratory (AFCRC, ARDC), to monitor a project with the Research Foundation of Ohio State University . Among the more interesting of the research findings was that "higher noise levels do not create confusion, but do intensify those confusions already inherent between
5096-494: The information is accessible by just the reservation number printed on the ticket. Additionally, "[t]hrough billing, meeting, and discount eligibility codes, PNRs contain detailed information on patterns of association between travelers. PNRs can contain religious meal preferences and special service requests that describe details of physical and medical conditions (e.g., "Uses wheelchair, can control bowels and bladder") – categories of information that have special protected status in
5187-404: The layout and content of a PNR. In practice, each CRS or hosting system has its own proprietary standards, although common industry needs, including the need to map PNR data easily to AIRIMP messages, has resulted in many general similarities in data content and format between all of the major systems. When a passenger books an itinerary, the travel agent or travel website user will create a PNR in
5278-479: The letter names, from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN). Both authorities indicate that a non-rhotic pronunciation is standard. That of the ICAO, first published in 1950 and reprinted many times without correction (e.g. the error in 'golf'), uses a large number of vowels. For instance, it has six low/central vowels: [ æ ] [
5369-475: The letters å , ä and ö . Åke is used to represent å , Äiti is used for ä and Öljy for ö . These code words are used only in national operations, the last remnants of the Finnish radio alphabet . In German , Alfa-Echo (ae) may be used for " ä ", Oscar-Echo (oe) for " ö ", Sierra-Sierra (ss) for " ß ", and Uniform-Echo (ue) for " ü ". The Greek spelling alphabet is a spelling alphabet for
5460-494: The letters C, M, N, U, and X were replaced. The ICAO sent a recording of the new Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet to all member states in November 1955. The final version given in the table above was implemented by the ICAO on 1 March 1956 , and the ITU adopted it no later than 1959 when they mandated its usage via their official publication, Radio Regulations . Because the ITU governs all international radio communications, it
5551-451: The letters of the Roman alphabet , with the goal that the letters and numbers would be easily distinguishable from one another over radio and telephone. The words were chosen to be accessible to speakers of English, French and Spanish. Some of the code words were changed over time, as they were found to be ineffective in real-life conditions. In 1956, NATO modified the then-current set used by
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#17327808959935642-494: The letters sound sufficiently different from each other to clearly differentiate them. This avoids any confusion that could easily otherwise result from the names of letters that sound similar, except for some small difference easily missed or easily degraded by the imperfect sound quality of the apparatus. For example, in the Latin alphabet, the letters B, P, and D ("bee", "pee" and "dee") sound similar and could easily be confused, but
5733-487: The level of PNR protection ensured in Australia for the transmission of Passenger Name Record data from airlines. Customs applies a general policy of non-retention for these data. For those 0.05% to 0.1% of passengers who are referred to Customs for further evaluation, the airline PNR data are temporarily retained, but not stored, pending resolution of the border evaluation. After resolution, their PNR data are erased from
5824-615: The likelihood of ambiguity or mistaking one letter for another. For example, if a burst of static cuts off the start of an English-language utterance of the letter J , it may be mistaken for A or K . In the international radiotelephony spelling alphabet known as the ICAO (or NATO) phonetic alphabet , the sequence J–A–K would be pronounced Juliett–Alfa–Kilo . Some voice procedure standards require numbers to be spelled out digit by digit, so some spelling alphabets replace confusable digit names with more distinct alternatives; for example,
5915-636: The more desirable lists. A final NDRC list was assembled and recommended to the CCB. After World War II, with many aircraft and ground personnel from the allied armed forces, "Able Baker" was officially adopted for use in international aviation. During the 1946 Second Session of the ICAO Communications Division, the organization adopted the so-called "Able Baker" alphabet that was the 1943 US–UK spelling alphabet. However, many sounds were unique to English, so an alternative "Ana Brazil" alphabet
6006-518: The most successful word for each letter when using "military interphones in the intense noise encountered in modern warfare.". He included lists from the US, Royal Air Force, Royal Navy, British Army, AT&T, Western Union, RCA Communications, and that of the International Telecommunications Convention. According to a report on the subject: The results showed that many of the words in the military lists had
6097-418: The noisy conditions on long-distance circuits. Their development was loosely intertwined with radiotelephony spelling alphabets, but were developed by different organizations; for example, AT&T developed a spelling alphabet for its long-distance operators, another for its international operators; Western Union developed one for the public to use when dictating telegrams over the telephone; and ITU-T developed
6188-404: The old "Able Baker" alphabet. Confusion among words like Delta and Extra , and between Nectar and Victor , or the poor intelligibility of other words during poor receiving conditions were the main problems. Later in 1952, ICAO decided to revisit the alphabet and their research. To identify the deficiencies of the new alphabet, testing was conducted among speakers from 31 nations, principally by
6279-424: The particular database by a record locator . When portions of the travel are not provided by the holder of the master PNR, then copies of the PNR information are sent to the CRSs of the airlines that will be providing transportation. These CRSs will open copies of the original PNR in their own database to manage the portion of the itinerary for which they are responsible. Many airlines have their CRS hosted by one of
6370-447: The past century, with the first ones being used to overcome problems with the early wired telephone networks, and the later ones being focused on wireless two-way radio (radiotelephony) links. Often, each communications company and each branch of each country's military developed its own spelling alphabet, with the result that one 1959 research effort documented a full 203 different spelling alphabets, comprising 1600 different words, leading
6461-467: The phonetic alphabet used by the Royal Navy during World War I. At least two of the terms are sometimes still used by UK civilians to spell words over the phone, namely F for Freddie and S for Sugar . To enable the US, UK, and Australian armed forces to communicate during joint operations, in 1943 the CCB (Combined Communications Board; the combination of US and UK upper military commands) modified
6552-425: The post-1969 figures should be equally emphasized. The Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet is used by the International Civil Aviation Organization for international aircraft communications. The ITU-R Radiotelephony Alphabet is used by the International Maritime Organization for international marine communications. Since "Nectar" was changed to "November" in 1956, the code has been mostly stable. However, there
6643-627: The pronunciations published by ICAO and other agencies, and ICAO has apparently conflicting Latin-alphabet and IPA transcriptions. At least some of these differences appear to be typographic errors. In 2022 the Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) attempted to resolve these conflicts. For example, they consistently transcribe [a] for what the ICAO had transcribed variously as [a], [aː], [ɑ], [ɑː], [æ], [ə] in IPA and as a, ah, ar, er in orthography. Just as words are spelled out as individual letters, numbers are spelled out as individual digits. That is, 17
6734-404: The proposed new alphabet with changes based on NATO's own research, to become effective on 1 January 1956, but quickly issued a new directive on 1 March 1956 adopting the now official ICAO spelling alphabet, which had changed by one word (November) from NATO's earlier request to ICAO to modify a few words based on US Air Force research. After all of the above study, only the five words representing
6825-618: The regular English numerals ( zero , one , two , etc., though with some differences in pronunciation), whereas the ITU (beginning on 1 April 1969) and the IMO created compound code words ( nadazero , unaone , bissotwo etc.). In practice the compound words are used very rarely. A spelling alphabet is used to disambiguate those parts of a message that contain letters and digits, because the names of many letters sound similar, for instance bee and pee , en and em or ef and ess . The potential for confusion increases if static or other interference
6916-678: The same distortions that make a spelling alphabet for radiotelephony also make a spelling alphabet desirable for directing seamen in which flags to hoist. The first documented use of this were two different alphabets used by U.S. Navy circa 1908. By 1942, the U.S. Army's radiotelephony spelling alphabet was associated with the International Code of Signals (ICS) flags. (proposed) While spelling alphabets today are mostly used over two-way radio voice circuits (radiotelephony), early on in telecommunications there were also telephone-specific spelling alphabets, which were developed to deal with
7007-429: The same reason. The code words for digits are their English names, though with their pronunciations modified in the cases of three , four , five , nine and thousand . The code words have been stable since 1956. A 1955 NATO memo stated that: It is known that [the spelling alphabet] has been prepared only after the most exhaustive tests on a scientific basis by several nations. One of the firmest conclusions reached
7098-462: The same regardless of any further changes made (except if a multi-person PNR is split). Each airline will create their own booking record with a unique record locator, which, depending on service level agreement between the CRS and the airline(s) involved, will be transmitted to the CRS and stored in the booking. If an airline uses the same CRS as the travel agency, the record locator will be the same for both. A considerable amount of other information
7189-445: The speaker, or when the audio channel is not clear. The lack of high frequencies on standard telephones makes it hard to distinguish an 'F' from an 'S' for example. Also, the lack of visual cues during oral communication can cause confusion. For example, lips are closed at the start of saying the letter "B" but open at the beginning of the letter "D" making these otherwise similar-sounding letters more easily discriminated when looking at
7280-409: The speaker. Without these visual cues, such as during announcements of airline gate numbers "B1" and "D1" at an airport, "B" may be confused with "D" by the listener. Spelling out one's name, a password or a ticker symbol over the telephone are other scenarios where a spelling alphabet is useful. British Army signallers began using a partial spelling alphabet in the late 19th century. Recorded in
7371-430: The table below. Others are: "colon", "semi-colon", "exclamation mark", "question mark", "apostrophe", "quote", and "unquote". Prior to World War I and the development and widespread adoption of two-way radio that supported voice, telephone spelling alphabets were developed to improve communication on low-quality and long-distance telephone circuits. The first non-military internationally recognized spelling alphabet
7462-476: The unstressed second syllables of fower, seven, niner, hundred. After WWII, the major work in producing a better spelling alphabet was conducted by the ICAO, which was subsequently adopted in modified form by the ITU and IMO. Its development is related to these various international conventions on radio, including: The ICAO Radiotelephony Alphabet is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization for international aircraft communications. Defined by
7553-665: The word ñoño ( [ˈɲo.ɲo] , 'dull') is used for ñ . Åke is used for " å " Ärlig for " ä " and Östen for " ö " in the Swedish spelling alphabet, though the two-letter substitutes aa , ae and oe respectively may be used in absence of the specific letters. /Julius /Quotiënt The PGP word list , the Bubble Babble wordlist used by ssh-keygen , and the S/KEY dictionary, are spelling alphabets for public key fingerprints (or other binary data) –
7644-429: The words "bravo", "papa" and "delta" sound completely different, making confusion unlikely. Any suitable words can be used in the moment, making this form of communication easy even for people not trained on any particular standardized spelling alphabet. For example, it is common to hear a nonce form like "A as in 'apple', D as in 'dog', P as in 'paper'" over the telephone in customer support contexts. However, to gain
7735-423: The words in question". By early 1956 the ICAO was nearly complete with this research, and published the new official phonetic alphabet in order to account for discrepancies that might arise in communications as a result of multiple alphabet naming systems coexisting in different places and organizations. NATO was in the process of adopting the ICAO spelling alphabet, and apparently felt enough urgency that it adopted
7826-487: The years, sometimes to reflect the current norms, and sometimes by the force of law. In rules made effective beginning April 1, 1946, the FCC forbade using the names of cities, states, or countries in spelling alphabets. Certain languages' standard alphabets have letters, or letters with diacritics (e.g., umlauts , rings , tildes ), that do not exist in the English alphabet. If these letters have two-letter ASCII substitutes,
7917-627: Was adopted by the CCIR (predecessor of the ITU ) during 1927. The experience gained with that alphabet resulted in several changes being made during 1932 by the ITU. The resulting alphabet was adopted by the International Commission for Air Navigation, the predecessor of the ICAO, and was used for civil aviation until World War II . It continued to be used by the IMO until 1965. Throughout World War II, many nations used their own versions of
8008-414: Was also adopted by most radio operators, whether military, civilian, or amateur . It was finally adopted by the IMO in 1965. During 1947 the ITU adopted the compound Latinate prefix-number words ( Nadazero , Unaone , etc.), later adopted by the IMO during 1965. In the official version of the alphabet, two spellings deviate from the English norm: Alfa and Juliett . Alfa is spelled with an f as it
8099-621: Was developed on the Western Front of the First World War. The RAF developed their " telephony spelling alphabet ", which was adopted by all three services and civil aviation in the UK from 1921. It was later formally codified to provide a word for all 26 letters (see comparative tabulation of Western military alphabets). For civilian users, in particular in the field of finance, alternative alphabets arose. Common personal names were
8190-414: Was that it was not practical to make an isolated change to clear confusion between one pair of letters. To change one word involves reconsideration of the whole alphabet to ensure that the change proposed to clear one confusion does not itself introduce others. Soon after the code words were developed by ICAO (see history below), they were adopted by other national and international organizations, including
8281-538: Was used in Latin America. In spite of this, International Air Transport Association (IATA) , recognizing the need for a single universal alphabet, presented a draft alphabet to the ICAO during 1947 that had sounds common to English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. From 1948 to 1949, Jean-Paul Vinay , a professor of linguistics at the Université de Montréal , worked closely with the ICAO to research and develop
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