Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is Up With the NATO Phonetic Alphabet? 

thanks for this info, ii have added this alphabet to my emergency radio manual for reference.

Was the other part brought to us by Coca Cola?

Now what has "Ø" for Øresund and "Æ" for Ægir done to be left out?

And you didn't even delve into regional phonetic alphabets such as the famous APCO (aka LAPD) radio alphabet, which I believe is still in use today, and which is the alphabet I learned growing up thanks to the famous TV series Adam-12 and Dragnet. (But then I became a Ham, and now I know two.) Well, maybe you can do a sequel.

Joe momma!

I'm not sure if my dog knows how walk and ride are spelled or if he just recognizes that we are spelling but either way he knows. 😂

Same with a dog my parents used to own. 🤣

Our Greyhound not only learned W-A-L-K spelling but K-L-A-W, and we thought we were so smart. We tried spelling nonsense words to see if she was hitting on the spelling only, but she would only get excited when we spelled that word.

dogs probably correlate the sounds of the letters as similar to sounds of words so as long as they hear a certain group of sounds they assume it means the same thing every time

My morkie knows the same but it’s “outside” and “treat”

It's even weirder when you're the only person on the line who uses it...

or if war breaks out

We used to use it when I worked at Dulles. So many letters sound the same.

I have noticed that most law enforcement use names like "A as in Adam" I personally prefer "T as in Oolong"

​@@PaulHarris-sl1ct Or perhaps T as in Earl Grey.

I learned NATO phonetic as a truck driver. If your job involves strings of letters and numbers being spoken you should know NATO phonetic. It's easier to understand and more professional then "B as in boy".

Same here except I'm still in ATC...

YES!! Along with the whole wasted words of “B as in boy…”

I had the NATO alphabet taped to my monitor when I worked on an IT help desk. I figured there was already a perfectly good phonetic alphabet that existed so why try to come up with my own? 😉

@@gullinvarg I memorized it when I did a year of IT phone support. That was 15 years ago, and I still use it.

USAF... filled army ILO spots for a decade (04-12) was an RTO as well, but knew the alphabet before that because 2t1s have to learn it in tech school (That is 88m and AIT for you ground pounders).

Regular person here,and I also know this alphabet,because it was taught to me in kindergarten lol You don't have to wear camouflage to figure this out lol

one of the first things we learned in boot camp in the Navy. Something you'll use over sound powered phones all the time. Though certain letters are used more than others.

Worst thing is when you instinctively use the NATO phonetics alphabet and a civilian says "hang on I can't write that fast" Oh God now I have to explain what a phonetic alphabet is.

@jimmym3352 Navy flex! Eh-oh! I like how we apparently have all these manly vets just sitting around all day waiting to brag about how they used to be something lol Good job!

After the army I went into law enforcement. My agency used nato, but other agencies used words like Adam and David, so I got used to the different words. But yes, when the customer service representative says, “B as in boy, B as in Bob”, it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard.

In more modern times, those same two would have been called Nurses Alpha and Bravo respectively.

What part of Boston are you from?

I'm an Australian Army Vet. Same years, 05 to 13

Army NG still use it from the 80s.

Bravo Zulu

I've used it to stay awake driving. Spelling things out with it including the phonetic spelling alphabet both forwards and backwards 😂

You were a mechanic,or a firefighter? Get your lies straight lol

@jeffdroog 20year mechanics 11years volunteer firefighter

@@Perry2186 I'm a little shocked neither of those jobs,or the years apparently required to do them,ever required you to write a coherent sentence lol

@jeffdroog talk to text doesn't work great with a southern accent. Also, I was driving proof reading wasn't a priority

​@@jeffdroog Always reassuring to see the Internet Police out and about and keeping busy.

Apparently, the current service standards for fidelity/intelligibility are much lower for cellular telephony than mid-20th Century wired lines. A fair number of us remember the long-distance (and it is only a number of us who grok the concept of "long-distance" itself) carrier Sprint and its famous pin-dropping. No free lunch.

​@@UtilityCurve TANSTAAFL 😊

@@UtilityCurve My dislike for cellular phone conversation happened sometime in the early 2000s when analog got quickly replaced with the more modern digital encoding. The human ear can fill in gaps in a message with some static, but the cutout that digital has when data is lost is terrible. Same issue with video, as a kid I remember still managing to watch a badly tuned channel on the TV, unlike a digital signal that gets blocky.

I find myself confusing an improperly pronounced QUEBEC with the letter K.

Amen to that! Definitely came in handy for open gas accounts in the Midwest.

I occasionally need to use them verbally myself. But I'm not sure when I'd ever write them down to note their spelling.

@@jeffweber8244 I learned the alphabet decades ago at 10 years old (because I was a weird kid) and I don't think I have seen the alphabet written out since.

It's not NATO invented. They just adopted it in 1956, but it was in use already for many decades.

It's not NATO. It's military. It was used way before NATO started.

@@bite-sizedshorts9635 Tell it to the people who made the video bro

Hay for Horses, Beef or Dinner, See for yourself, Dee for Kate, Effort ,

Brandon at Talladega, the crowd chanting.

D for dave o for....... August...... wait that's not an o..... "Sir it is OK, calm down"

Yes of course: P as in Pterodactyl, S as in Sea, A as in Aye, E as in Eye, L as in Llama, M as in Mnemonic, C as in Cay, K as in Knight

"No my name is Carry, not Terri. That's C as in Crane, A as in Avery, R's like Railroad, and Y like Yike. No! Not Terri. How are you not getting this!?"

🎉congratulations🎉 54 year's is amazing nowadays!

​@@danlabok7117 54 years is amazing in any era (unless the marriage has one or two abusive people.)

Mazel Tov! My wife also caught on to the phonetic alphabet pretty quickly when she married this former airdale (though I was no longer in the Navy); one of the things that made me smile the biggest was a couple of months into our marriage when she referred to her sneakers as "go fasters." We'll have been married 21 years on next Saturday, provided she keeps me that long 😁 Fly Navy!

Bravo Zulu.

Except he was lying about it originating with NATO. It was in use from the beginning of radio in the US.

The term “ham”is not an acronym. It should not be written in all capitals.

I work in an IT call centre and it frustrates me to no end that the NATO alphabet isn't taught or enforced by management.

failed anyway tho

@@pretzelhunt Well, yeah, he was arrested. He said it correctly though. I was both impressed and annoyed b/c it took far longer to type Alpha, Bravo, Charlie than it did A, B, C.

I've done that myself ​@@carolann811

That sounds like an interesting job.

How many videos have you deleted for your friends?

But how did you answer without them knowing? Start blurting out numbers and of course they'll be thinking money, right?

@@Drew-bc7zj Just gave general values. "Lots, not much, etc." No, definitely did not give numbers because that would have meant pulling out our wallets and did not want to expose the contents of our wallets if at all possible.

@@pithicus52 Afraid they'd have an accomplice rob you, or was it scams perpetrated on customers, like overcharging or watering down drinks?

@@Drew-bc7zj The bar maids were only served from a special bottle of "whiskey" that the customers were never served from. And yes it was expensive.

@@pithicus52 Were you forced to buy them drinks? It's not like there was a chance they were going home with you.

kp crisps only fry good spuds was ours. and lets not forget Naughty elephants squirt water either ;)

Kings Park Cars On Fresh Gold Streets

That’s excellent!

Knave Pterodactyl Czars Oil Fjord Gnat Symbols

King Phillip Called Out For Good Soup

Coulda been a real SNAFU. That would've been really FUBAR.

​@@benn454Then he would have had to bohica. 😂

@@cycoholic The Green Weenie comes for us all.

I was looking for someone else who noticed!

​@@James_Wotring me too 😂

It was Easter in my part of the world around the time you wrote your comment

@@oalfodr Your part of the world is 3 weeks behind everyone else?

@@nunyabidness674 Yup. Church here follows Julian calendar

London Monkey Nuts.

Most of the videos he has to say something silly ...his writers entrap him all the time

What do you mean - his writers. He writes the script.

@@simontay4851he does not, mostly just reads the scripts. he has several channels & the joke across them is he keeps his writers in his basement.

I Wonder if he'll do the q codes next

Not NATO. It's military and invented way before NATO.

Personally, had a difficult time translating the real (NATO) alphabet to the local police alphabet.

I asked someone who was using random words what she'd use for Z - she immediately said "Xylophone"! (well, it does sound llike it should start with a Z)

@@peterbennett8567 Cracks me up that word would ever pop in somene's head for that purpose.

That isn't as funny as my staff sergeant spelling out the registration of the van we were using and when he said "uniform" me thinking "I'm sure there wasn't a u", I checked, he was trying to indicate "y". I didn't correct, not my place :)

As an old biddy I would say that xylophone does spring to mind for X. When I was very young I had an alphabet puzzle with A for apple and a picture and so on. X was illustrated with a xylophone. It did give my nursery teacher a bit of a surprise when I came out with that one in class.

Except civillian services use the names. Adam Baker charlie. Eww....

@@SteelWolf13 In California: Adam, Boy, Charles, David, Edward, Frank, George, Henry, Ida, John, King, Lincoln, Mary, Nora, Ocean, Paul, Queen, Robert, Sam, Tom, Union, Victor, William, X-ray, Yellow, Zebra.

Adam, Bertil, Caesar, David, Erik, Filip, Gustav, Helge, Ivar, Johan, Kalle, Ludvig, Martin, Niklas, Olof, Petter, Qvintus, Rudolf, Sigurd, Tore, Urban, Viktor, Wilhelm, Xerxes, Yngve, Zäta, Åke, Ärlig, Östen.

Joemamma did.

Dadum dum dum tshhh!

Your Mother did.

Producer extraordinaire and longtime basement dweller Sam. :-) -Daven

Joemomma did.

Gerp

"Normal one"? What's the normal one?

@@pieterboelen2862 I think he means the normal alphabet. Somehow he didn't learn his ABCs when he was a kid.

One of the elements of the NATO alphabet that did make it out into gen pop for a while there. The filmmakers obviously assumed by then it was understood to mean WTF by enough people to buy tickets. Also, fun movie. People I knew thought it captured the civilian expat life in Kabul in those days reasonably well. At least for the media and a few other groups.

1st

YES! You totally SHOULD have learned it 20 years ago! ...even if it wasn't a requirement of your rating.

NATO had nothing to do with it.

@@bite-sizedshorts9635 Yes, it was in use before NATO.

Thr one that kills me is when operators use "kilowatt" to convey the letter 'k' instead of the prescribed "kilo." My mind immediately wants to transcribe KW instead of K.

I used to work for a French guy. He seemed to think the J in Julio was silent. 😁

Lenovo makes one that has full travel keys that can be a good stand-in for you. And it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. That's what I'm using right now. I've worn the spacebar shiny smooth.

There is a company called Unicomp that bought the machinery and technology off of IBM and produces new buckling spring keyboards to this day.

@@frakturfreak Oh good. I have 2 of them and could use a few spare parts. And I'd like to convert one of them to USB. I jockeyed an AS/400 and their sequels for 30 years and these keyboards are more comfy than my favorite equally vintage jeans.

I wish I knew this when I was in the Army🤣🤣🤣

I test people's knowledge of the phonetic alphabet (for a Canadian Radio Operator certificate) and sometimes give Romeo as a clue for Juliett (or vice versa) when the student gets stuck - but that only works with people of the right culture (or age?)

I learned this alphabet in kindergarten lol You went way above the call of the duty to learn this lol Fail.

@@jeffdroog , don't worry, we can tell from your replies that you've never done anything significant with your life. You don't have to keep repeating it.

How did you catch that?

USN 2013-17. I spent 12 weeks at OCS, where reciting the phonetic alphabet perfectly while doing burpees for an hour straight was a typical morning.

Glad I wasn't the only squid to hear it!

@@Annoyachu hooyah, brother

Incredible miss right in the intro

As a 911 Operator, my similar but troublesome experience with a caller that I couldn't understand if he was saying S or F, so I asked several times 'F like Foxtrot, or S like Sierra?" He'd say something I didn't understand, so I tried again 'F like Frank, or S like Sam?', again some strange word that just wasn't registering with me with me. Finally I tell him that I am not understanding at all, is it 'F like Fast or S like Slow' (I may have added a touch of sarcasm on the Slow) - and he starts yelling and repeating, over and over until it finally clicks: 'F like coFFee'... 😳

What the hell are you talking about?

​If you used a radio in the US army in the 80s and gave a city name you would say the name, then spell it. Before hand you would say "I spell" so the receiver would know you were spelling the city name and not just saying weird words. As in " map grid 19 Tulips. I spell Tango Uniform Lima India Papa Sehera

@@jeffdroog

Roger. Pro words rule.

No.

@@kevtheis listen carefully 0:03...

Boy is actually the phonetic for B in the law enforcement phonetic alphabet in many states in the US (including California). It is as follows: "Adam, Boy, Charles, David, Edward, Frank, George, Henry, Ida, John, King, Lincoln, Mary, Nora, Ocean, Paul, Queen, Robert, Sam, Tom, Union, Victor, William, X-ray, Yellow, Zebra." What's funny, is I was in the Air Force prior to being a civilian cop. I had the NATO phonetics memorized: "Alpha, Bravo, Carlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu." When becoming a police officer in CA, I had to use the ones I first mentioned. They became second nature over time - with a few accidental reversions to the NATO standard during training. But THEN, I decided to take flight lessons and became a private pilot. I had to switch back to the original NATO/ICAO phonetics! It's been quite a pain, but I feel I am now bilingual. It is still a little difficult switching between the two alphabets depending on whether I'm working or flying. Like I said, it's basically like speaking two different languages.

Tango Mike India. 😆

And "ack ack ack" is a quote from Mars attack

@@tobi...398 Martians predicted the opening date of the Beijing Olympic Games?

That's Flak as in Fliegerabwehrkanone Ack Ack is differently British

​@@stevechopping3021 "Acht" German for 8. As in the popular 88 mm Flack gun.

Except the Germans measured the bores of their guns in centimeters, not millimeters, so it would be 8.8, not 88, to them.

Police codes vary tremendously depending on the agency using them. So does the phonetic alphabet they use. For example, in California, the phonetic alphabet used by CHP and local police is: "Adam, Boy, Charles, David, Edward, Frank, George, Henry, Ida, John, King, Lincoln, Mary, Nora, Ocean, Paul, Queen, Robert, Sam, Tom, Union, Victor, William, X-ray, Yellow, Zebra." On the other hand, the FBI, military and all federal law enforcement agencies use the NATO/ICAO phonetic alphabet of: "Alpha, Bravo, Carlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu." Prior to civilian law enforcement, I was in law enforcement in the US Air Force. We used completely different codes in the Air Force than I currently use in civilian law enforcement. A humorous example of this difference is that "Code 6" in the Air Force meant "I need a bathroom break." On the other hand, "Code 6" in civilian law enforcement (in California, at least) means "I need backup." This caused quite some confusion and frustration among the local sheriff's deputies that used to scan our base's radio frequency. They'd hear one of the Air Force gate guards ask for a "Code 6" (actually meaning the guard needed to use the restroom) and think the guard was asking for backup because that's what a "Code 6" meant at their agency. As far as police codes used to describe crimes, these are usually taken from the state Penal Code or Vehicle Code. They again vary by state. In California, a robbery might be dispatched as a "two-eleven in progress." This is because in California, robbery is defined in section 211 of the Penal Code. The same would be true of getting dispatched to a "possible twenty-three-one-fifty-two driver." This means a possible drunk driver because the crime of driving under the influence in California is section 23152 of the Vehicle Code. I hope that explains some things and also kind of shows how it would basically be impossible for Simon to cover all of this in a video, since every single state and country has its own unique codes.