Call Signs

[rngr2000]

So I've been listening to the ham bands on my scanner to get a "feel" for how the locals operate. I have my first radio ordered (Yaesu FTM-10R) and it should be here Tuesday. One thing I've noticed is its dang near impossible to catch peoples call signs. Its seems they either mumble it like they have a mouth full of cotton or say it at warp speed. The rest of the conversation is perfectly understandable. Im trying to get a feel for things and would like to catch some call signs so that with a little help form the FCC database I can figure out who some of the locals are. I hope this is just part of learning things and it will get easier to recognize call signs.

 

[lbfd09]

You will catch the calls the more you listen. Once you are on the air, sometimes you will recognize the voice. Others you can just ask if you did not understand the call. Most hams ar friendly and will give the call in the phonic alphabet to help.

Enjoy your new radio there.

 

[K9WG]

The locals know each other so call letters are just a formality to satisfy the FCC requirements. Once you get on the air most operators will make sure you understand their call letters.

 

[kb2vxa]

The locals operate so informally they sound like CBers without the silly lingo, phony Texas accents and of course the obligatory cuss words. If you want to get the feel of real Amateur Radio listen to the HF bands where it's more than casual chit-chat and call-signs are much easier to understand out of necessity. In other words when you have something less than a telephone circuit you have to speak clearly and sometimes use standard phonetics to be understood.

 

[tekshogun]

I actually have more trouble understanding people on SSB/AM in the HF bands because, despite all of the noise, lightning crashes, random QRM, and the general non-uniform paths of signals coming in from all over, lots of hams tend to use the phonetic alphabet not as often as you would think; primarily they're used during nets, much like they do on FM on 2 meters and up and you'll also get it on new contacts, but if you listen in on a coversation between some people, they'll just throw their callsigns out there, and things can get quite as informal as in the Technician bands.

If I have trouble hearing someone on 2m or 440, it is because people talk too fast. I have heard people slaughter their own call signs, example: The prefix K-E-4 often to my ears becomes K-4 or K-C-8 might become K-E-8, K-Z-8, or something else ridiculous.

It gets really annoying when running nets and I have specifically have asked people to use STANDARD PHONETICS to give their callsign, and yet they still say the typical alphabet pronunciation or use some other phonetics (such as King Elliot Four or Kind Elmer Four, blah blah blah).

Learning to understand people's callsigns is like anything else we end up doing naturally in life, like adding two numbers or reading a paragraph of words, working the controls on your radio without reading the manual; it will improve with time and interacting with others. Just listening will get you used to hearing it but knowing at some point that you're going to have to say someone's callsign back will force your brain to figure it out and it is easier than you think so try not to think about it too much.

 

[texasemt13]

... phony Texas accents...

Warren, we Texans don't have accents. Y'all are the ones with the accents.

If I ever miss a callsign during a QSO on a 2m/70cm repeater because the other operator is too fast or sounds like chipmunk, I'll ask them to send it again (because, I feel, I genuinely need to know/confirm who I'm talking with). If I have to ask a third time, they usually get the hint and give it phonetically. If I have to ask past that, I send my callsign in phonetics slowly, and with great condescension, ask them to repeat theirs again. I rarely get past the second request before I understand them.

HF can have the same problem, but usually for different reasons:
1. speaking to a foreign operator it's understandable that a language barrier exists, and more than 1 try can be typical.
2. the band is that noisy and it just got lost in the ether.

 

[k9rzz]

What bugs me is that on the USA County Hunter's net, 14,336khz they won't let you use phonetics because it 'wastes time'. I would love to go on there and work a bunch, but I can never get their calls correct! Frustrating indeed. Is that N5PDP? N5DPD? N5PET? WHat?

 

[RadioDaze]

I have trouble getting call signs the first time too. When we hear words in a conversation, we recognize the whole word, and even if we missed a few milliseconds of the start of the word, we still know it's "shape." Same thing with reading - we don't need to see every letter of the word to recognize it.

Call signs are more like arbitrary combinations of letters and numbers, and often we're hearing them for the first time so there's basically nothing to "recognize." If we don't concentrate on it right from its first utterance, we can miss most of it. If someone says, "My call sign is ______." then we are alerted to listen to it. But if it's just thrown in when we aren't expecting it, then we can miss it, perhaps hearing only the suffix.

That's another way phonetics help - it gives us more of a recognizable word to latch onto, and lengthens the amount of time we have to "hear" the whole call sign.

I hope you all had as much fun reading this as I did making it up.

 

[CalebATC]

Warren, we Texans don't have accents. Y'all are the ones with the accents.

HF can have the same problem, but usually for different reasons:
1. speaking to a foreign operator it's understandable that a language barrier exists, and more than 1 try can be typical.

Haha on the first part. I reckon they just don't understand.

You mean like that guy on 40 meters around 7180 KHz? Boy, he talks FAST! I don't even bother checking in; waiting for my /AG to be removed, and then I might try. Love hearing him call QRZ'ed and then a million people shout....

 

[emd001]

Ive never really messed with voice HF and when i am talking with someone on 2m/70cm i just refer to them by the end of their call (and i usually get it wrong lol). I have always had a hard time hearing a ham's call the first time and dont usually get it until i hear it 3 or 4 times during the conversation.