[K3PZN-List] SOME THOUGHTS ON PHONETICS, CALL SIGNS, WORKING DX, AND A SMALL CONFESSION

[Alfred Bisasky]

A rose by any other phonetic is a geranium...

I am a firm believer in standards, so all kidding aside, I do in fact use
standard phonetics on the air.  Well, most of the time, anyway. But,
whatever works for you in a pile-up is just hunky-dory with me. If I had my
druthers, I'd sign KING THREE ZEBRA EASY. The thing that drives me nuts is,
"the name here is..." instead of "my name is...".  For some strange reason
when I give my name on-the-air phonetically as "Alpha-Lima", I have to
repeat it several times, but if I say "America-London" the DX station picks
it up right away every time.  Strange...  I suspect that some DX operators
that know very little English have a difficult time with certain letter
phonetics.  Thus, using phonetics like Norway for November or Zanzibar for
Zulu, what have you.  We use phonetics, standard or otherwise in order to be
understood.  And don't forget to pronounce our state "Mare-ee-land" instead
of "Murlind".

Your so vane...

There is a distinct advantage to a 1x2 or 2x1 callsign if you are an avid
DX'er and/or contester.  When I applied for my vanity callsign, I wanted
something short, sweet, and "punchy".  Each letter in my callsign is
phonetically only four characters.

How I got to be the ham that I am today (excerpt from my autobiography)...

Actually, K3ZE is a composite of my previous callsigns: N3BNZ and KB3SE.  I
do miss KB3SE because I could give my call sign phonetically as "Kangaroos
Bounce Three Steps Everywhere".  Back in the olden days of yore, when a
bunch of us ne'er-do-wells and gadflies of the hamming world would
congregate on the Telephone Pioneers repeater in Baltimore (147.285+), a
good friend of mine, Dwight KB3LA (SK), was known as "Long Antlers" and I
was known as "Short Ears" (Thank you, K3HLE, I'll never forgive you).  We
were also known as Dan Arundel and Bawlmer Benny and carried on a running
comedy act in strict "Bawlamereze".  See yuz downy-ocean, hon, on the two
meter repeater by da waves.  The repeater police had a field day with us!
One even went to the Federalaes about us.  However, "Long Antlers" was, at
the time, a field engineer for the FCC's Baltimore office, so the complaint,
and the repeater policeman were never heard from again on '285.  Okay, so we
bent the rules a little bit (some would say into the shape of a pretzel).

This will drive Keith krazy...

Some of the phonetics that were used to clarify the callsigns were: W3 Old
Empty Jug (SK), WA3 High Quality X-Rays (SK), K3 Fertile Turtle, to name but
a few.  Maybe the club should have a crazy phonetics callsign contest.  The
winner would receive a free Period Table of the Elements autographed by
KE3FL.

Go have fun with this one...

Al, KAYTHREEZEDEEEEEEEEEEEE

Wow, you can tell that the HF bands are in bad shape, can you?