Phonetic Alphabet

The phonetic alphabet is used by Police and the Military to spell out words on the radio. Using the phonetic alphabet helps to avoid any misunderstandings of important information or details transmitted over the radio. An example of how it would be used is the phonetic spelling of the word CAT . This word would be transmitted as Charley Alpha Tango. As you can see the letters of the word are replaced by their phonetic equivalents. Rather than saying UHF over the radio, the letters would be spoken in their phonetic equivalents, Uniform Hotel Foxtrot. FM would be transmitted as Foxtrot Mike or sometimes abbreviated to Fox Mike. Many destination letter codes are used on aircraft radio and names can be clearly spelled out on police radio using the phonetic alphabet.