When people in a jet cockpit says "Roger"

[Plu]

1.  roger wilco

Wilco implies roger.  You can't comply with something you haven't received.

What?  :-?   "Roger" (meaning "Received") Solitary

Redudancy. If you say "Roger Wilco" you communicate the same information as when you just say "Wilco", because in order to "Wilco" (ie; do what is said) you have to "Roger" (ie; know what was said).

[SilentFutility]

Here, let me google that for you friend.

[SGOS]

1.  roger wilco

Wilco implies roger.  You can't comply with something you haven't received.

What?  :-?   "Roger" (meaning "Received") Solitary

I was told that radio protocol has a lot to do with saving time, since lots of people share the same channel.  but it's hard to understand a gain in more brevity by saying "Roger" just because its the phonetic alphabet word that represents "r" which is the first letter of the word "received".  Why not just say "received"? It's just two syllables like Roger, but it actually means exactly what it means.

[Jason78]

I was told that radio protocol has a lot to do with saving time, since lots of people share the same channel.  but it's hard to understand a gain in more brevity by saying "Roger" just because its the phonetic alphabet word that represents "r" which is the first letter of the word "received".  Why not just say "received"? It's just two syllables like Roger, but it actually means exactly what it means.

I guess that would make sense if you could always get a strong clear radio signal.  But when the signal is poor quality, it's easier to pick out phonetic letters out of the mess.

I am not a radio enthusiast, and the above is just a guess.

[Johan]

I was told that radio protocol has a lot to do with saving time, since lots of people share the same channel.  but it's hard to understand a gain in more brevity by saying "Roger" just because its the phonetic alphabet word that represents "r" which is the first letter of the word "received".  Why not just say "received"? It's just two syllables like Roger, but it actually means exactly what it means.

My guess would be if 'received' were to be adopted as the standard expected reply, that would mean non-english speaking pilots would have to learn an extra word. Aircraft radio communications are in English everywhere in the world. So pilots and controllers who do not speak english natively must learn and understand all the standard radio phraseology in English.  Why add an extra word to the list of words to learn when we already have one that works perfectly well for the task?

[SGOS]

I was told that radio protocol has a lot to do with saving time, since lots of people share the same channel.  but it's hard to understand a gain in more brevity by saying "Roger" just because its the phonetic alphabet word that represents "r" which is the first letter of the word "received".  Why not just say "received"? It's just two syllables like Roger, but it actually means exactly what it means.

I guess that would make sense if you could always get a strong clear radio signal.  But when the signal is poor quality, it's easier to pick out phonetic letters out of the mess.

I am not a radio enthusiast, and the above is just a guess.

Yeah, I kind of understood that, but I had to go and make a big deal over the issue, because, well, that's what I do.   :-D

On a related note, ham radio used to be a much more widespread hobby than it is today.  Before the internet, the only way to communicate with someone over seas on a regular basis was by shortwave radio.  Well, I guess you could use the phone, but if you are a radio enthusiast, I can see the thrill of short wave because it's kind of cool, even though it's a rather awkward form of communication.

But that being said, when I was getting ready to make my ocean crossing, I had to learn a little bit about shortwave communications.  Not because I was going to communicate with anyone at home (I had a piece of cheap technology on board that allowed me to send and receive brief text only emails via satellite), but I wanted to receive weather faxes which are sent by shortwave.  The channels sound like static but slightly different.  

You tune your shortwave radio to one of about 10 weather fax channels around the world, hook your shortwave to your computer via a headphone jack, and with $100 worth of special software, I could modulate the static into a weather map on my laptop computer screen.  It's cumbersome and takes maybe a half hour to create a weather map, but you can save the image and refer to it at your leisure.  It shows 72 hour predicted wind directions, wind force, and fronts in your area.  It was sort of helpful and became part of my daily routine.  I could also pick up the BBC, and a few channels devoted to sports, and one whacky program in the middle of the night where people called in about their paranormal experiences.  Such is life at sea.

But to drag this dissertation out some more, a gal I met at the marina had just finished a course on shortwave, and gave me lots of helpful information.  Part of the course was devoted to lobbying congress on not cutting back on shortwave bandwidth.  It seems that with our modern obsession with computer internet, cell phones, and iPads, the bandwidth has to come from somewhere, and its being reallocated to modern digital communications, much to the alarm of the few radio enthusiasts still remaining around the world.

[Solitary]

So what if it is redundant? It is still used to make communication more reliable.

"Voice procedure includes various techniques used to clarify, simplify, and standardize spoken communications over two-way radios, in use by the military, in civil aviation, police and fire dispatching systems, citizens' band radio (CB), etc.

Voice procedure communications are intended to maximize clarity of spoken communication and reduce misunderstanding. It consists of signalling protocol such as the use of abbreviated codes like the CB radio ten-code, Q codes in amateur radio and aviation, police codes, etc., and jargon. For instance the United States Air Force uses a term "Check Rog" it means received and acknowledged.

Some elements of voice procedure are understood across many applications, but significant variations exist. The military of the NATO countries have similar procedures in order to make cooperation easier, and pseudo-military organizations often base their procedures on them, so some commonality exists there.

Roger Wilco — A phrase from two-way radio. It combines "Roger" (meaning "Received") and "Wilco" (meaning "will comply"). In the military, Roger and Wilco are used exclusively. Basically it means I hear you and will comply with your wishes or command.

"Roger" was the U.S. military designation for the letter R (as in received) from 1927 to 1957
Roger!  :roll: Solitary

[Colanth]

I was told that radio protocol has a lot to do with saving time, since lots of people share the same channel.  but it's hard to understand a gain in more brevity by saying "Roger" just because its the phonetic alphabet word that represents "r" which is the first letter of the word "received".  Why not just say "received"? It's just two syllables like Roger, but it actually means exactly what it means.

I guess that would make sense if you could always get a strong clear radio signal.  But when the signal is poor quality, it's easier to pick out phonetic letters out of the mess.

I am not a radio enthusiast, and the above is just a guess.

And a good one.  Heard through a lot of noise, "received" could be a lot of things.  "Roger" is more easily grabbed by the ear and mind.  "Received" has a lot of the components of noise in it, "roger" has far less.  (I've been a ham radio operator for over 56 years.)

[Colanth]

So what if it is redundant? It is still used to make communication more reliable.

Maybe in WWII movies, but not in reality.  Roger means that you received the message.  Wilco means that you received the message and will comply with it.  Roger wilco means that you received the message, received the message and will comply with it.  Clear as the mud in the Mongaup valley and as reliable as a dead snail.

Anyone who understands the word "lid" is laughing.

[Solitary]

So what if it is redundant? It is still used to make communication more reliable.

Maybe in WWII movies, but not in reality.  Roger means that you received the message.  Wilco means that you received the message and will comply with it.  Roger wilco means that you received the message, received the message and will comply with it.  Clear as the mud in the Mongaup valley and as reliable as a dead snail.

Anyone who understands the word "lid" is laughing.

"Voice procedure includes various techniques used to clarify, simplify, and standardize spoken communications over two-way radios, in use by the military, in civil aviation, police and fire dispatching systems, citizens' band radio (CB), etc. So you disagree with this. right? You said yourself in an above post that roger is easier to understand.  I think you have had too many lids.  :shock: :roll: Solitary

[Colanth]

So what if it is redundant? It is still used to make communication more reliable.

Maybe in WWII movies, but not in reality.  Roger means that you received the message.  Wilco means that you received the message and will comply with it.  Roger wilco means that you received the message, received the message and will comply with it.  Clear as the mud in the Mongaup valley and as reliable as a dead snail.

Anyone who understands the word "lid" is laughing.

"Voice procedure includes various techniques used to clarify, simplify, and standardize spoken communications over two-way radios, in use by the military, in civil aviation, police and fire dispatching systems, citizens' band radio (CB), etc. So you disagree with this.

With regard to CB, clarity, simplification, standardization and even being correct are a joke.  Police and fire departments have found that codes are a lot more effective than spelling things out.  It's easier to hear and comprehend "10-4" than "yeah, I sure did get what you said there".

You said yourself in an above post that roger is easier to understand.

On a noisy medium, "roger" is a LOT easier to understand than "received", and "roger wilco" is just a waste of bandwidth.  Might as well say "roger wilco, I got that and I'll do it".

[SGOS]

Working for the Forest Service years ago, radio protocol was apparently pretty important.  They gave us training, well a minimum of training, and we each carried cards with the "Ten Codes" printed on them.  We went out of our way to sound all official when we had a chance to talk on the radio.  You would be called on the carpet for not using proper protocol, except for a few of the higher up guys that were irreplaceable such as the helicopter pilot, who would just chatter away with anything that seemed to go through his head like he was in a coffee shop, and nobody dared confront him.

I was told by the National Forest's radio technician (Yeah, the National Forest actually had a guy that did nothing but fix radios and repeater stations, although he might have been a contractor that only worked when they needed him).  He said that for the most part, codes were a throwback to days when radio transmissions were very poor.  He said there wasn't that much need for them with today's radios.  However, there were a few times when we would find ourselves in an isolated part of the forest without a good shot at the Blue Mountain repeater station, and we couldn't get through, and on rare occasion the dispatcher would tell us to stop transmitting and walk up the trail another half mile and call him back.

That was back in the 60s and 70s, and communications are much better now, even through the radios are much smaller and no longer require a suitcase to carry them around.

[Colanth]

Two way radios, yes.  Most services are digital or going digital, and when the signal gets weak, either the radio "goes digital" (gets garbled to the point that it's just not speech) or disappears completely.  So plain speech is completely usable, but without some fixed format, or at least guidelines, "plain speech" can become plain unintelligible gibberish.  Think nonsense posts here, where we can't see facial expressions, add the fact that in many cases the listener has no idea what the speaker is talking about and using a predetermined word or group of words makes things a lot easier.  "10-4" is easier to pick out of the air than a choice of "yes", "okay", "right" and a few other words that might fit - and "huh?"  Huh and yuh sound pretty close when people are panicking.  (When they're calm because nothing important is happening, communications aren't all that important anyway, and that's not what all these procedures were designed for.)

As far as aircraft radio though?  It's still AM, analog and a signal that's down in the noise makes "roger" a lot more understandable than "received".  (It's due to the frequency distributions of the respective words.)