Typing "CONUS RADAR" into Google immediately brings up the combined weather radars for the... CONUS. Try it!
No Doubt, Police Agencies are switching to NATO because so many more Police are ex (or currently in) the military.
Um, it's a treaty, the FCC regs are all based on what's in that treaty and incorporate it by reference as to any international amateur communication. That's what Part 97 is authorized by under international treaty that allows the US government to allow us hams to use HF and satellite international telecommunications stuff. It's not just up to one's own nation since life after WW2. If you have a license from a treaty nation, for example the FCC, it does in fact = the ITU. Because here the FCC and the rest of the US government says so. What's the penalty for -ham's- not following a clearly applicable but advisory international standard under an international treaty for call sign identification during a DX ham communication? Your peers call you a lid and you don't get cookies at field day. But that standard is time tested based on linguistic science and a darn good idea because it works. And BTW OM, going down to Varick street (?) at 14yo was a pain, screw tests "at their" offices! LOL
Of course, remember men's pants with white or pink stripes down the side? And who can forget the great Dobie Gillis line of clothes?
No, they use the ITU's. NATO adopted them as "their own" in a separate formal legal document that only applies to NATO nations (a NATO STANAG if memory serves). I suspect back in the day the Warsaw Pact nations did the same, some order saying "yo, dude's, Stalin agreed to this ITU science based phonetic engineering crap so quit stallin' and learn it..."
I am not talking about aviation - this is about ham radio! I know that English is the standard for aviation, and that the NATO phonetics are used - because it's in English! English is universal in aviation, so NATO phonetics are universal. UNDERSTOOD. English is NOT universal in ham radio, therefore NATO phonetics cannot/should not be. Why is this so difficult to understand?
Can you point to a reference on this? I am an APCO member, and I have seen nothing mentioned on this "change", nor have I heard of any agencies making the switch to NATO phonetics.
Who cares ? Sounds like weather nets that say do not report Golf ball size hail. You have to say the hail is 1.680 inches. Same difference.
That’s a very good point, and I agree that confusion with a location would be a big problem for an aviation situation. However in a typical ham DX or contest exchange the content is typically limited to just a call sign so there’s not a similar problem of ambiguity if using Japan for Juliet. Some contests exchange state or provinces but again not likely to be ambiguous. I can’t think of any contests where country names are exchanged but maybe there are.
