Slow day #59: phonetic alphabet

A

asicer

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
10,026
Display Name
Display name:
asicer
So it's the Friday before Christmas and I'm very unfocused right now...

Looking at the phonetic alphabet table in AIM 4-2-7, why is O/V "OSS-KAH/VIK-TAH" and not "OSS-KER/VIK-TER" while 4/N is "FOW-ER/NO-VEM-BER" and not "FOW-AH/NO-VEM-BAH"?

Seems rather inconsistent.
 
ISTR that Jim Weir once published an updated phonetic alphabet a few years back, using words that WEREN'T pronounced like their first letter. Such as "Knew" for k, "Pseudonym" for P, "Xenophobe" for X, etc.

Visited my grand-nephews last summer. They proudly proclaimed that they had learned the "Radio Alphabet." They were surprised when ol' Great-Uncle Ronny knew it better than they did.
pilot.jpg

Ron Wanttaja
 
asicer said:
So it's the Friday before Christmas and I'm very unfocused right now...

Looking at the phonetic alphabet table in AIM 4-2-7, why is O/V "OSS-KAH/VIK-TAH" and not "OSS-KER/VIK-TER" while 4/N is "FOW-ER/NO-VEM-BER" and not "FOW-AH/NO-VEM-BAH"?

Seems rather inconsistent.
Click to expand...
The object is to have words that DON’T sound alike so they’re you’re able to differentiate over really crappy radio.
 
It's been a while, but I used to hear the occasional "pa-PAH". I did hear a "tree" the other night.
 
eman1200 said:
cause the guy who did the letters came from boston?
Click to expand...
Reminds me of a zoologist study in Boston, regarding crows hit by vehicles. Crows tend to warn each other about hazards, but the zoologists found a lot more crows were killed by trucks than cars in Boston.

They figured it out...the Boston crows could say, "Caw," but not "Truck".....

Ron Wanttaja
 
BTW, anyone ever heard (or spoke) "lima", as in bean, instead of "Lima", as in Peru?
 
wanttaja said:
ISTR that Jim Weir once published an updated phonetic alphabet a few years back, using words that WEREN'T pronounced like their first letter. Such as "Knew" for k, "Pseudonym" for P, "Xenophobe" for X, etc.
Click to expand...
It's really hard to find words for all 26. Most are easy, but there are a few holdouts.
 
I always heard the city in Ohio pronounced Lima lie-ma, but phonetically it’s always been leema.
I live close to a Hurricane, West Virginia, but it’s pronounced her-a-cun around here. But you never hear the weatherman giving her-a-cun warnings.

I dunno??
 
Talking to a bloke from OK, he was from Miami....pronounced me-am-ahh
 
As you're flying your Waco to Waco, remember that Aloha, Oregon, is pronounced "uh-LOW-uh ORry-gun", and the Illinois town of Montrose has a definite pause between the 'Mont' and the 'rose'.
 
tree96 said:
I live close to a Hurricane, West Virginia, but it’s pronounced her-a-cun around here.
Click to expand...

I actually know where that is. I used to instruct at the Ona airport. I landed in a field near Heracun that I was told was an old runway at some time.

I would take students to a small airport in O-hi-ah to learn normal traffic patterns and landings.
 
asicer said:
BTW, anyone ever heard (or spoke) "lima", as in bean, instead of "Lima", as in Peru?
Click to expand...
If I heard that, the next statement I expect to hear is, Nblah blah, please call 555-5555 for possible deviation l..lol
 
I've heard the pronunciation of the name of the Arkansas River varies, depending on whether the speaker lives in Kansas or Arkansas.

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
I've heard the pronunciation of the name of the Arkansas River varies, depending on whether the speaker lives in Kansas or Arkansas.

Ron Wanttaja
Click to expand...


I call it Are-Can sass.... What really piszes off my deer camp brothers is calling the Oachita river Wah-chee-taah instead of Wash-ah-taw river..... Makes their blood boil for some reason. :stirpot:
 
deonb said:
When you didn’t think you were going to see a river but then you see one?
Click to expand...

I always look going over the 30 and most of the time its more like wet rocks......
 
Zeldman said:
I actually know where that is. I used to instruct at the Ona airport. I landed in a field near Heracun that I was told was an old runway at some time.

I would take students to a small airport in O-hi-ah to learn normal traffic patterns and landings.
Click to expand...

That's because there's a hill in the way at Ona . . . Gotta love turning base when the numbers are 45° behind you and turning direct for them to stay above ground! :eek2:

It's an interesting place, what with the hill, the road to the racetrack crossing the runway and the RC club. I was based at Lawrence Co., a small airport in o-HI-a where the pattern for 26 was normal, but for 8 you had a parallel ridgeline between you and the runway and you had to pick which gap to use for your Base leg.

My IFR checkride started at CRW and ended at Ona.
 
Once heard someone, XXXSP, calling himself "Sugar Pop" on the radio . . . . Don't recall where, but not down here.
 
Zeldman said:
I actually know where that is. I used to instruct at the Ona airport. I landed in a field near Heracun that I was told was an old runway at some time.

I would take students to a small airport in O-hi-ah to learn normal traffic patterns and landings.
Click to expand...

Wow small world. I’ve been into Ona a few times. Was the small airport in Ohio, HTW by any chance?
 
tree96 said:
Wow small world. I’ve been into Ona a few times. Was the small airport in Ohio, HTW by any chance?
Click to expand...

I would take students to Gallipolis first. Then I would go to Lawrence County for night landings before attempting any night landings in Ona.

I met 5 dollar Frank a couple of times, but I never got a chance to fly with him. Very interesting person to listen to. Did you ever try landing at Mallory?
 
And you can always tell whether someone is a local, or visitor in eastern Washington / northern Idaho. It's Moscoe, Idaho and Mos Cow Russia (spelled the same in both cases).

Now, in amateur radio the "official" phonetic alphabet is the same as in aviation. There are a bunch of variations out there, however. One guy I knew in California had (at the time, he's changed since then ) the call NF6S. Nuts For 6 Squirrels. Or, if he was feeling off a bit, Nine Five Six Seven. :) Another was WA6D, Wobbly After 6 Daiquiris. Which I would be. :) Another friend had N6SRT. Seemingly harmless, except we said N 6 Spinnaker Right Turn, because he did that once and drug the mast into the water on an Islander 36.
 
When I was a younger man, I drove cabs for a while in a northern suburb of Chicago. The owner was from somewhere like Maine, I'm not exactly sure where but somewhere in that area.

Occasionally one of the regular dispatchers didn't show up, and the owner would take over.
His accent was so pronounced, I could not understand what the hell he was saying.

Honestly, I can't recreate the exchanges because it just consisted of, to my ears, him gargling into the mic, and me saying "what was that?" And "please repeat?" "Can you spell it?" and honestly, I don't even think the phonetic alphabet would have helped. I'm imagining how he would have mangled "victor" or "foxtrot".

It was like he was talking backwards, or from the middle, out both ways.
 
Timbeck2 said:
Another one I don't quite get. When did "Eye" thirty become, "the" thirty?
Click to expand...

Dunno.... in Cali, it’s The 405.... The 101..... The 91.....the 10. That’s what I grew up saying.
 
Ironically, I started to post at the end of the above, "I blame California" but I didn't. ;)
 
Unit74 said:
Dunno.... in Cali, it’s The 405.... The 101..... The 91.....the 10. That’s what I grew up saying.
Click to expand...
It's likely from all those years of listening to traffic reporters intone, "There's a wreck on the southbound 405 just past the 10, and it's backed up all the way back to the 101; the southbound 170 and the 101 are a little better ... "
 
“The” preceding a freeway number is a southern California thing. No one in from NorCal says it like that - it’s just “17” or “101”.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top