Callum Gilhooley (No its not Colin) gets his Phonetic alphabet mixed up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet

It can lead to poor communications when booking a flight or even communicating an emergency situation!

here's a separate topic.

imagine you are in some forsaken third world country and you are tossed in jail. so you're alone in some stinking, rotting jail cell. and the only way to communicate with the other prisoners - is to tap out a message through the walls.

how exactly do you do this? I don't think many people know Morse Code any more. so what do you do - go back to
one-tap = A
two-taps = B
etc.
it's pretty inefficient.

I wonder if there is some creative way to do this??

Pete2

I would suggest the Smitty Harris tap code... inscribe the 26 letters of the English alphabet in a 5x5 matrix, doubling up C and K in the same cell...as they have the same sound....

-- 1 2 3 4 5
1- a b c d e

2- f g h i j

3- l m n o p

4- q r s t u

5- v w x y z

tap out in row column order 5,2 / 1,1 / 4,4 / 1,5 / 4,2
w a t e r

sorry, I'm not able to get the correct spacing... from the Hoa Lo prison, it is my understanding that the first row was sent without a row indicator, only the column, that is tap,tap,tap,tap,tap for "e" to speed up the message

Interesting question as Morse code is quite efficient for communications.

Children today don't have access to such devices such as the Mego Star Trek communications console anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUesQ6wA4Uo

I don't think that they teach Morse Code at High School today, but alas youngsters can be surprisingly adept with predictive word texting, where I'm at a complete loss when using this text mode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hcoT6yxFoU

The Smitty Harris tap code would probably be the best way as it is simple to remember and easy enough for others follow and understand, but in the UK it would have to be adapted as folks in the UK are more used to Column first then row next implementation.

Tap code:
I was trained in tap code in the Air Force. Since then, I have trained others. We can sit somewhere an appear to be "absent mindedly" tapping our fingers on the table and carry on a conversation.

Although no longer required for a United States amateur radio license.it does appear to be staging somewhat of a comeback. Still it is a very small percentage of amateur radio communications.

Nomad.