How many of you guys....

Depends on radio clarity and location in the world. When on VHF in an english speaking country, there's rarely a need for tree or fife, however on HF or in non native English areas I'll often use the correct international phonetics.
 
Warlock said:
Yes, but mostly it was for artillery fire, or a nine line for close air support...then again secure radios distort the transmission with frequency hopping or encryption. Sometimes accurate grids are important....so I sometimes slip it in accidently on clear commo channels. never thought of me being a tool...
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I suppose I should have issued a caveat- the only time I gave heard tree and fife used with regularity is in naval gunfire coordination.

It's the guys who use it outside of that over something like UHF SATCOM that are viewed as 'tools'.

When you have reliable, clear comms, there isn't really a need for it.
 
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timwinters said:
Does anyone know why fife and tree are recommended instead of five and three? Niner is obvious but I don't see the potential for misunderstanding with five and three.
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It was believed that certain sounds (e.g. v, th) were hard to understand over the radio, particularly with high ambient background noise.

We were taught "fife" and "tree" in Basic but only noobs used them in real life.
 
.....tree......fibe.....niner......and sometimes when I get tongue twisted ....I've said..cleared to land.....one way one.......
 
Sac Arrow said:
It was believed that certain sounds (e.g. v, th) were hard to understand over the radio, particularly with high ambient background noise.

We were taught "fife" and "tree" in Basic but only noobs used them in real life.
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Fife, tree and niner were created in the early days of marine radio long before airplanes carried radios. Largely due to the radio quality and HF frequencies that can really distort the transmission.
 
I say "niner" and "slant" as in "C172 slant Golf". Is "slant" in the AIM?
 
timwinters said:
Does anyone know why fife and tree are recommended instead of five and three? Niner is obvious but I don't see the potential for misunderstanding with five and three.
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Bureaucrats. If changing one was good, then changing more is better, right?
 
airguy said:
Bureaucrats. If changing one was good, then changing more is better, right?
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:rolleyes2: you've never had to communicate on HF on a stormy night, or tried to understand a non native English speaker who doesn't form vowels the same way. This stuff was NOT brought about by bureaucrats, rather by professionals who needed to come up with an international standard that could be pronounced and understood by everyone over poor radio propagation conditions.
 
My Reg is N8843P Ive got three of them in there. I happen to use "Tree" so it doesn't sound like im saying 8,8,40,P. I dont say fow-er or pa-paa.
 
JBrown243 said:
My Reg is N8843P Ive got three of them in there. I happen to use "Tree" so it doesn't sound like im saying 8,8,40,P. I dont say fow-er or pa-paa.
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We have a guy near here with a number similar to yours. He'd say it as "four-three-pop".
 
I usually don't do anything special, not even niner. But I do say "kuhbeck" for Q because I speak French and "kwebeck" sounds so wrong. "Kuhbeck" isn't quite right either, but close enough :)
 
jpower said:
I usually don't do anything special, not even niner. But I do say "kuhbeck" for Q because I speak French and "kwebeck" sounds so wrong. "Kuhbeck" isn't quite right either, but close enough :)
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I thought the phonetic pronunciation was Kay-beck.
 
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