Alpha Bravo Yankee Zulu
The history of the NATO alphabet devised 50 years ago
Last week's BBC Radio 4 programme on the NATO phonetic alphabet is available
on the BBC website
Programme Description
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/pip/dho56/?focuswin
It is now 50 years since the NATO alphabet, in common use by aviators,
the police, airline booking clerks, etc, was devised. The original intent
was to have a system of linguistic purity which would avoid some of the
catastrophic
misunderstandings arising from communications during the Great War. Is
it perhaps the only vestige of an internationally unifying dream which
still has some use?
The alphabet approved by international aviation and telecommunications
bodies now has some strangely dated sounds, but is nonetheless immediately
recognisable across the globe. How and where it is still used is almost
impossible to calculate, and yet any radio wave at any time of day will
contain part of it.
This programme tells the story of this phonetic alphabet. Alongside historical
evidence and linguistic analysis (the syllable-count and stress pattern
are supposed to make this alphabet error-proof), there are also snatches
of eavesdropped sound from air-control conversations with aircraft, interviews
with police officers - remember Zed Victor One? and secrets of Army signals
operatives working in code.
Listen here (requires RealPlayer)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/alpha_bravo
73 Trevor M5AKA
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