Phonetic Alphabet

The ITU Phonetic Alphabet

the ITU international phonetic alphabet used for voice radio communications, and general telecommunications applications The international phonetic alphabet is widely used for radio communications and other applications. Its use has come about because of the need to be able to distinguish letters accurately when spoken over radio channels where the bandwidth of the audio is limited and there may be interference. Even when using standard telephone lines letters such as "B" and "P" for example may sound very different. Many other letters also sound relatively similar, and particularly over radio communications equipment, it may be different to distinguish between them.

In order to alleviate the problem, phonetic alphabets have been sued since the earliest days of radio communication. For many years the one adopted by the ITU, International Telecommunications Union, has been taken as the standard, and it si the one that is given below.

A

Alpha

N

November

B

Bravo

O

Oscar

C

Charlie

P

Papa

D

Delta

Q

Quebec

E

Echo

R

Romeo

F

Foxtrot

S

Sierra

G

Golf

T

Tango

H

Hotel

U

Uniform

I

India

V

Victor

J

Juliet

W

Whisky

K

Kilo

X

X-ray

L

Lima

Y

Yankee

M

Mike

Z

Zulu

After the introduction of voice radio communications it was soon realised that it was easy for letters to be mistaken. However it was only with the advent of international radio communications in the mid 1920s that the need for international organisation cooperation was recognised. Asa result of this the International Telecommunications Union, ITU took on many responsibilities from allocating callsign blocks for the different countries to gaining agreements on codes and other standards.

As a result of this work the ITU assembled and adopted the first internationally recognised alphabet in 1927. This was widely used in early radio or "wireless" communications of the day. As a result of its use, a number of weaknesses were discovered and in 1932 it was revised.