[Lifeboat1721]

When you watch a program on the TV do so called Radio opps say Over and Out?

I was always bought up that it is Over to you and Out meaning to terminate a transmission .

So you can't hand Over the Mike and Terminate at the same time.

Ian

[STRAWBERRY]

quite right, I get so annoyed when you hear it in films and other programmes, my wife get annoyed also, because she's fed up of hearing me complain about it. Andy "Strawberry" Straw... OUT!

[Sister Eleff]

You are right Ian, I use the radio quite often in a rescue capacity. When we are training newbies; once they get over their nerves they want to "roger, wilco, over & out". If anyone slips up it's heard all over the area and that person is the butt of a few jokes. They soon learn to "copy that/over/out"

[K urgess]

Section 154 of the Handbook for Radio Operators -
"The end of work between two stations is indicated by each
station adding the word "OUT" (or VA spoken as VICTOR
ALPHA in case of language difficulties) at the end of its last
reply."

Since the last word is previously stipulated to be OVER then the last words would be OVER and OUT.
In morse we always sent AR VA. Which is the morse equivalent of over and end of transmission.

Roger is the old ROMEO and acknowledges receipt. Wilco comes from the same era and means received perfectly.

[trotterdotpom]

"Roger" is simply a carry over from the old phonetic alphabet. ABle, Baker, Charlie, etc. I think it was intended to be taken over by the new "Romeo" but that didn't seem to take off (I'm sure I read that in some Radiospeak handbook but could be wrong).

One that bugged me was the American use of "Come Back" instead of "Over".

We use radios extensively at work and the Number One annoying thing is people who call using their own callsign first - grrrrrrr!

10-4, good buddies.

John T.

[trotterdotpom]

"Wilco comes from the same era and means received perfectly."

Fubar, you got in before me! I though WILCO meant "Will Comply".

John T.

[K urgess]

You may be right JT.
That was from dim and distant race memory so I could have my wires crossed again.

[sparkie2182]

wilco indicates understanding of an instruction.....agreement.....and compliance.......that is to say, proceeding to comply.

it does not figure in marine communications except in matters relating to surface/air........specially helicopter ops.

the c.a.a. helicopter communications certificate course makes quite a lot of this..... as it is the one phrase featured in every w.w.2 film featuring thr r.a.f..........and the exact meaning is often misunderstood, although everyone thinks they know......

[trotterdotpom]

Helicopters have their own phonetic alphabet, for instance "W" is wokka wokka.

John T.

[sparkie2182]

i think one means.........

"wogga wogga"

[Tai Pan]

The precision of CW. There is not alternative to VA. didnt have phone in my day.

[Hugh MacLean]

In naval comms, Over and Out is NEVER used - bad procedure.
Regards

[Moulder]

Originally Posted by Marconi Sahib

.........
In morse we always sent AR VA. Which is the morse equivalent of over and end of transmission..........

I always thought K was the morse equivalent of 'over' - AR indicated the end of a part of the transmission but comms would remain open until VA.

SK was used by old Communist Bloc Countries and neighbours instead of VA.

Steve.

[Ron Stringer]

Steve,

Since the morse combination of dots and dashes was the same and sent as a single character (i.e. without a gap between the two letters), how did they differentiate between VA (...- .-) and SK (... -.-)?

[K urgess]

Yeah but you wouldn't send K then VA or at least I never did.
It was always AR VA and then dots at each other until someone gave up.

[Moulder]

Originally Posted by Ron Stringer

Steve,

Since the morse combination of dots and dashes was the same and sent as a single character (i.e. without a gap between the two letters), how did they differentiate between VA (...- .-) and SK (... -.-)?

Hi Ron,

A definite gap was inserted by the Eastern Bloc operators to form the signal SK - and was (is) easily readable as such.

Same morse dots/dashes - same meaning - but, different letters.

Cheers,

Steve.

[Moulder]

Originally Posted by Marconi Sahib

Yeah but you wouldn't send K then VA or at least I never did.
It was always AR VA and then dots at each other until someone gave up.

I didn't send the combination VA at all during my time at sea - not even when working the Japanese stations who had a tendency to use it.

All other end of working was the usual TU SU GN EE etc.

[K urgess]

Most common use I remember was when sending OBS CQ with some emphasis on the dashes in VA.
Funnily enough I never used any of the 73 or 88 greetings or whatever they were.
I sent my last message by morse professionally over 30 years ago and haven't really thought about it since so most of this is dredging the last drops out of the memory banks.
Bound to have some corruption in there.

[Gareth Jones]

As far as merchant ships are concerned the operating procedures whether R/T or W/T are internationally agreed. The are designed to assist operators of differing nationalities and languages to communicate.

Wilco, Roger etc never appeared in the operators handbook I learned procedures from. Why say roger when you can say received ? When in your MN career did you find the need to say "Will Comply" on R/T. I would suggest saying "OK".

I cannot imagine for example Scheveningen Radio using these meaningless phrases when working a Greek ship !

I know little about British Military Radio procedures but can only guess these words have some special implied meaning which I dont understand, or,
they have a movie origin offering pseudo technical terms which the audience can understand and yet imply technical competence to the onscreen character.

I spent a number of years working in GPO coast stations and use of such words was very much frowned on as being unofficial jargon which offered no benefit, only the oportunity for confusion. The emphasis was to use simple everyday english, especially so when working foreign ships on R/T.

[King Ratt]

I remember that ending a QSO was, as already mentioned by Moulder, TU SU etc and if the coast station finished with a VA, it usually meant that you had upset him. There were no Dit Dits after that.

[jaydeeare]

On my Navigation Course at College, each message on the light was always finished with AR VA.

Messages were always started AAA AAA.

When I started Morse on my Sparks Course, the other lads were suprised that when I always started and finished with those.

[K urgess]

I suppose it comes down to what you were taught at college about procedures.
Then what your chief said on your first trip when you actually had to go live for the first time.
Then both of those modified by habits you got into as time went by.
I'll bet none of us worked exactly the same way and none of us followed the "bible" to the letter.

[Moulder]

Kris,

I agree there ..... we all learnt the theory the way it was taught in order to get the 'ticket'.
Then we were guided by our first boss - then probably led by what we heard on 500 - and developed from that.

[mikeg]

Originally Posted by trotterdotpom

"Wilco comes from the same era and means received perfectly."

Fubar, you got in before me! I though WILCO meant "Will Comply".

John T.

WILCO definately means 'Will Comply' and is still current in commercial aviation terminology.

Mike

[M29]

Originally Posted by trotterdotpom

"Roger" is simply a carry over from the old phonetic alphabet. ABle, Baker, Charlie, etc. I think it was intended to be taken over by the new "Romeo" but that didn't seem to take off (I'm sure I read that in some Radiospeak handbook but could be wrong).

One that bugged me was the American use of "Come Back" instead of "Over".

We use radios extensively at work and the Number One annoying thing is people who call using their own callsign first - grrrrrrr!

10-4, good buddies.

John T.

John
Once trained a group of Police Divers for their VHF Restricted Radio Certs.
They had great trouble because Police radio procedures are opposite to ours in this respect.

Alan