KCØDMH and KCØJKX writes "<body> It is hard to tell which is which any more. You would think with all the technology in use today they would have kept one of the most ingenious ways to distinguish a zero from a capital "O". This was originally used on the older computers (pre-1993) to distinguish that a zero was inputted rather than a capital "O". The zero was represented as a Ø and a capital "O" was represented as, well, an O.</p> As computers advanced this style of zero slowly slipped out of use. My wife and I feel that it should still be used because the zero is VERY easily confused with a capital "O" in many fonts and types of print. We have several reasons which will be explained below why we think the Ø should be brought back.</p> 1) The ARRL US Call District still has the Ø</p> 2) We commonly have people trying to spell our call signs out. For example, while I was a student at a local college, a classmate of mine came up to me as I was getting out of my car and asked me why my license plates had the following name on it: KC0DMH. He pronounced it as "Kay-See-Odd-Da-Me". I explained to him that this is a zero and not an O at which point he said "oh - so it is not a word - it's call letters - like a radio station." You would not believe how many times this happens. My wife and I have even had police officers on two separate occasions call in my license plate as KC"O"DMH after being hit. Needless to say, KC"O"DMH did not pull up any information anywhere in the US for a registered vehicle so I had to explain that it is a zero and not an "O".</p> 3) I received my FCC license and thought to myself that it looks like KC"O"DMH. I dismissed the thought, reasoning that maybe the FCC feels it looks enough like a zero. But a few months later at work I was explaining amateur radio to a friend and he asked to see my license. I proudly pulled out my wallet sized version and he said "it says here KC"O"DMH - not KC0DMH." I had to explain that it was, in fact, a zero.</p> 4) You would not believe how many e-mails my wife and I have not received because people type kcodmh instead of kc0dmh. My wife has actually started writing "this is a ZERO not a capital "O", because non-amateur radio operators do not know any differently.</p> 5) As a web page designer I have found out that meta tags, as well as many other web scripts, do not recognize the Ø as a valid character. We feel that the Ø and the 0 should be recognized as one in the same.</p> 6) It is very hard to type this article and be able to distinguish when you typed a 0 and when you typed an O so that readers understand what is being said.</p> On a side note, many people argue that the Ø looks like a Q. I do not see this, nor have I ever seen this, since the slash is going the opposite way than that of a Q, so I do not think this is a valid argument. I would be interested to see how a QRZ poll on this subject would fare amongst amateur radio operators. I challenge QRZ to do such a poll and see if it would be worth trying to get the Ø reinstated.</p> As you can see from our call signs, KCØDMH and KCØJKX, my wife and I feel very strongly about using the Ø.</p> </p> </body>"