Talk:Voice procedure

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Five by five, Mayday, roger, wilco, and co. all need to come over here. Any air cadet or civil air patrolman or similar knows they don't merit separate articles. Yes, no, cancel? I'm going to add to the others anyway until I get thoughts on the merger. --Fighter 07:01, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Mayday deserves its own page -- as does SOS -- because they're both words known to the general public and found in many dictionaries. The other words are more specialized, known primarily to the CAP/military/police communities; I agree that those could be merged (with a link or redirect to to merged entry). 204.194.80.20

I don't agree with your statements that "roger wilco" and "over and out" amount to saying the same thing twice. Regardless of how people may define them now, their original meanings were quite clear:

Roger = understood Wilco = will comply

Over = I have finished speaking (with the implication that the conversation is continuing) Out = I am ending the conversation

Neither of these pairs is in any way mutually exclusive.

Rejoinder: When I served as an artillery RTO (radio telephone operator) in the Army National Guard, "over" meant that the frequency was open for the other station to reply, and "out" meant that your station was signing off. Thus, "over and out" is a contradiction in terms, because it would mean: "go ahead and reply, but I am not listening." NelsonLB 07:51, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


You may wish to edit Roger_Wilco in that case. Astrolox 20:33, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


This came off the "radio code words" page Radio Communication Procedure Words

Source: from Federal Standard 1037C and MIL-STD-188 and Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms and the UNHCR Procedure for Radio Communication

  • SOS is a general distress call used by ships and aircraft worldwide. It was created in the early days of radio telegraphy, because of its simple Morse code structure ( ... --- ... ) and subsequently the backronym Save Our Souls was coined.
  • Mayday is a general distress call, similar to SOS, though it's generally used in voice communication. Some say it's from the French m'aidez, meaning simply 'help me'. However, many official sources say it's made up as it is easy to remember, understand, and cannot be mixed up with other words. Do not use the keyword MAYDAY unless you are aboard a vessel or aircraft which is in immediate danger of sinking or crashing.
  • Roger, a term used to acknowledge a radio transmission. Can also be used in direct conversation, such as between pilot and co-pilot.
  • WILCO, means "I have received and understood your message and will comply (Only used by the addressee)"
  • Say Again, a term that requests the sender repeat all of the last transmission. ('Repeat' should not be used for this purpose, as it is used to request a second, identical artillery barrage.)
  • Words Twice, requests the sender to double the pronunciation of each word. eg. I I have have your your dog dog. Usually used when the signal is poor.
  • SitRep, Lit. 'Situation Report'. Eg. 'What's your sitrep?' or 'Sitrep to follow'. Sitrep will include information on position, movement status, direction of move, casualty status, etc.
  • Over, a term used to indicate one has finished talking, and implies a response is expected. Early radio systems used just one channel for talking and receiving. Neither party could transmit and receive at the same time, so control of the conversation has to be handed over. This allows a rudimentary but effective form of manual Handshaking.
  • Out, a term used to end a transmission (never properly used with OVER).
  • Ten-Four or "10-4", another term used to acknowledge transmissions. It is one of the Ten-codes made popular during the CB craze of the 1970s.

I think it belongs here instead, and the other page actually deserves to go, but I'm n00b and don't know how to do it.

[edit] Tower and aircraft names in example

I'm confused by the choice of tower and aircraft names ("Binary" and "Hexadecimal") in the example. Are these names chosen to imply additional meaning, that is "Hexadecimal 35F" should be translated by the reader into decimal 863? If they're just meant to be names, then please use something more generic.

15.243.169.71 17:54, 5 June 2007 (UTC) Over to you ROGER IS SICK! or Roger out 86.140.79.44 18:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Out versus Clear

At least in my ARES group training, there was a distinction between out and clear - out meant that the conversation was over, clear meant not only the conversation was over but that you would no longer be monitoring the frequency. Was that just our groups weirdness, or general practice? Psu256 (talk) 15:27, 8 June 2008 (UTC)