ad: Retevis-1

Ø, 0, O?

Discussion in 'Amateur Radio News' started by Guest, Apr 20, 2001.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
ad: L-HROutlet
ad: l-rl
ad: Left-3
ad: L-MFJ
ad: Radclub22-2
ad: abrind-2
ad: Left-2
  1. Guest

    Guest Guest

    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 &quot;O&quot;.
    This was originally used on the older computers (pre-1993) to distinguish that a
    zero was inputted rather than a capital &quot;O&quot;. The zero was
    represented as a Ø and a capital &quot;O&quot; 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 &quot;O&quot; 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
    &quot;Kay-See-Odd-Da-Me&quot;. I explained to him that this is a zero and
    not an O at which point he said &quot;oh - so it is not a word - it's call
    letters - like a radio station.&quot; 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&quot;O&quot;DMH after being hit. Needless
    to say, KC&quot;O&quot;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
    &quot;O&quot;.</p>


    3) I received my FCC license and thought to myself that it
    looks like KC&quot;O&quot;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 &quot;it
    says here KC&quot;O&quot;DMH - not KC0DMH.&quot; 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 &quot;this is a ZERO not a capital &quot;O&quot;,
    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>"
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

ad: MLSons-1