This may have been answered already-- I haven't read the whole discussion.* But VHF is a simplex system (I think that's the right word).* So it can only transmit one side of a conversation at a time.* It's not like a telephone which is a duplex system so you can interrupt each other.* So saying "over" tells the other person that you are done with your comment and are releasing the mike button so the other person can now depress his mike button and talk.* If you don't say "over" the other person may not know that you have completed your current statement and may be waiting to see if you have more to say.Carey wrote:
Here's something that I can't get right. I know that protocol says we must say over, when we are ready to allow the other person to speak. However, I don't say over in normal conversation, and simply don't remember to do so on the radio.
I always say "over" as my first exposure to VHF radio work was in aviation, where saying "over" becomes automatic.* Transmissions in aviation are kept very short because there may be another plane that needs to communicate with the tower or ATC or whoever Right Now.* Because planes can't stop until someone stops blabbing away on the radio but continue to plow ahead, short, to-the-point radio transmissions are a requirement.
"Over and out" came out of the movies, so far as I can determine, as a way of adding drama to dialogue.* Both terms are valid for radio use, but they contradict each other and so should never be used together.* "Over" means what I described above.* You are turning the simplex channel "over" to the other person to talk.* "Out" means you are done talking and are leaving the channel, turning off the radio, whatever, but you are though with the dialogue and no further comments from you will be forthcoming.* It tells the other person that they can now change frequencies, turn off their radio, or whatever.
Interestingly, "out" is not a term I ever hear used in aviation.* I say "over" after a response to a controller, but I do not say "out" when I'm done with the conversation and I've never heard anyone else-- pilot or controller-- say it either.* We simply stop talking.* So an aviation dialogue might be (me) "Ketchikan Tower, Beaver Five Nine Eight, Mountain Point, inbound for landing in the harbor, with Echo, over."* (Tower)* "Beaver Five Nine Eight, continue inbound,, caution a Cessna just departed the harbor eastbound."* (me) "Five Nine, Eight, continuing inbound, we have the eastbound traffic."* And that would be the end of it.* I'm not going to change radio channels so there's no need to let the controller know that I might do that with an "out."* But in boating I always end a dialogue with "La Perouse, out."
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