Roger that...
 

does anyone know the origin of the call "Roger" ? I'm curious as to how and when this came about.

In the former British Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabeth "Roger" was standing for "R", just like the "Romeo" in the NATO-Alphabeth now.

R simply was the abbreviation for "received".

IIRC it's usage even reached back to the morse-times, but I don't have the time to look that up right now.

I feel like I'm watching Lee Ermey on "Mail Call" (LOL)... :)

In the old days of radio when Morse code was still used, radiomen used the letter "R", dot dash dot (di-dah-dit) as a quick way to transmit acknowledgment of transmissions or as a "yes." When voice radio telephony was developed, the old radiomen stuck to the "R" as meaning yes. Since the phonetic alphabet for "R" then was Roger, the carryover was a natural logical development.

Roger is abused (no pun) quite often as people think it means "I will comply" when it fact it only means you received the transmission. "wilco" is of course the phase that affirms that you are going to comply.

Simply saying roger doesn't mean it's gonna get done where as "roger, wilco" gives the brass warm fuzzies :P

"roger, wilco" is a little bit too much for my taste since "wilco" already implies that you have received and understood the message.

Roger is abused (no pun) quite often as people think it means "I will comply" when it fact it only means you received the transmission. "wilco" is of course the phase that affirms that you are going to comply.

So has "wilco" also come from the same system?

Thanks for the info guys.

Wilco is the short of "Will Comply" and yes, I think it's from the same time.

and .... over & out.. means that the transmission is finished and you are signing off..

Interpretations may vary depending on where you live eg BC's over & out - here in Australia when I was doing my sig training (in the 80's) over meant " I have finished my transmission and am waiting for your response". Out meant " I have finished my transmission and I do not require you to respond". We used to get a proverbial kick in the butt from the RSO if we used over and out :-)

Cheers

Goanna

And in some parts of the World there is "Charlie Charlie" !

Correct, WTE_Goanna. At least that's what I learned in Tactical Communications back at the Navy.


Charlie-Charlie is rather new. It's the NATO-Description for cc, which stands for "Copy" or "Copy that", which simply mean that you had received a transmission and wrote it down in your comm-logs. It's also interesting that "copy that" sometimes is more common that "Roger" beyond radio-communications. Remember, that CC is also used in emails to send a message to more than one address. ;)

And what is Charlie?

Charlie for "C" as in the NATO-Alphabet for example.

# A - ALPHA
# B - BRAVO
# C - CHARLIE
# D - DELTA
# E - ECHO
# F - FOXTROT
# G - GOLF
# H - HOTEL
# I - INDIA
# J - JULIETT
# K - KILO
# L - LIMA
# M - MIKE
# N - NOVEMBER
# O - OSCAR
# P - PAPA
# Q - QUEBEC
# R - ROMEO
# S - SIERRA
# T - TANGO
# U - UNIFORM
# V - VICTOR
# W -WHISKEY
# X - XRAY
# Y - YANKEE
# Z - ZULU

In Asia especially when language barriers get involved the RT reply "Charlie Charlie" generally means affirmative or correct. Its widely used when dealing with places like Ujung etc :)

CC is also fabled to have originated from a double click of the transmitt button to mean "understood"

so Click - Click of the PTT was a simply an expeditious way of acknowledging receipt of transmission.

So CC has become charile-charlie once the phonetic alphabet came about.

I was taught this in private pilot training in communication with local towers and ground control at the smaller somewhat "uncontrolled fields"

here's the ww2 Military Phonetic Alphabet
Letter World War II
A Afirm (Able)
B Baker
C Charlie
D Dog
E Easy
F Fox
G George
H How
I Int (Item)
J Jig
K King
L Love
M Mike
N Negat (Nan)
O Option (Oboe)
P Prep (Peter)
Q Queen
R Roger
S Sugar
T Tare
U Uncle
V Victor
W William
X X-ray
Y Yoke
Z Zebra

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/3...lmanualaq3.png

from:
Air Publication 1713
June, 1939
R.A.F.V.R. Signal Manual - Signalling Procedure

Date of the manual corrections is unknown.

In the RAF you do not use "over & Out" as Over means, "I have finished my message and await a response" out on the other hand means "I have finished my message and no repsonse expected" So by having both phrases you are going to cause confusion.
V

Correct.

Besides, "over and out" sounds so cheesy. :)

LOL

+1 :grin: