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I was surprised that in the communications during the recent Dragon docking, they seemed to have the initial station designations reversed: first stating who is calling, followed by who is called. Also when Dragon crew was reporting poor call quality over the hardline, I don't think they used the phrases listed in the article.

edit: and also how/why it took them so long to resolve the apparent misunderstanding at some point, where the Russian crew on the ISS seemed to believe they were being called out by the ground crew.




I'm many years out of the Navy, but we were trained to say the addressee's ID first so that the addressee would hear the ID and pay attention to the rest.

In the early 1960s there was a TV series, Combat!, about a WWII U.S. Army infantry squad in France; Vic Morrow, playing Sgt. Saunders, would often say, e.g., "Checkmate King 2, this is White Rook, over." (Weird that I remember that, almost 60 years on ....)


I unfortunately didn't get to watch the launch or docking, but I know in (american) ham radio and CW (morse code) usually on the opening/first transmission your callsign is the first thing you say. If you callsign was K1QT, for example, you might say:

  K1QT calling CQ CQ
or

  K1QT calling K1HTL


In amateur practice "<call> calling <call>" is sometimes used for phone, especially UHF/VHF, perhaps out of the ARRL's stated preference for communications being clear and easy to understand without reliance on jargon or convention.

However, especially on other modes and even with phone in most cases, the standard is "<call> <call>". This is more or less derived from morse operating practice where the prosign "DE" means "this is" or "from," and the typical way of calling another station was "<call> DE <call>" (or perhaps "<call> DE <call> GA"). Naturally the DE was dropped in many cases and it became just the two calls in sequence with an implied DE.

There is actually no regulatory requirement to state call sign at the beginning of a conversation, although it's standard to because, well, it's nice to know who you're talking to. FCC regulations do require each party to state their call sign at the end of a conversation, usually as "<call> SK" in the case of morse or "<call> clear" in the case of phone, although I'd say use of the "clear" proword is somewhat more variable. I've always had a certain dislike for "we'll be clear" as this is a bit confusing to newcomers, less so than "clear on your final" although that seems more formal.

I assume that, like most radio conventions, this originated in naval use, as the convention is the same in at least aviation and public safety.


Is there a specific region where this is more common? I've only heard "<dest> this is <source>", never "<source> calling <dest>".


In Canada, can also confirm "<dst> <src>" is standard (I think it was one of the possible questions on the exam). And my understanding is that it's at least best practice in the US as well. At least the ARRL's "Making Your First Contact"[0] page lists it in that format.

The idea being whoever's on the other end is not actively listening until they hear their own call sign. If you say your own call sign first, you're just going to create confusion because all they're going to actually pick up is that they were called and have to "Person calling <X> come again..."

[0] http://www.arrl.org/making-your-first-contact


Thanks for the link -- I tried searching the web but couldn't find a canonical source, and my amateur radio guide book is at my office. :~)


It's far more common to hear the opposite, e.g.

W1AW this is W3DZZ

or

CQ CQ this is W1AW

in amateur radio.


Do you have a link to this communication?


Uhhh, so as to the initial order of called vs. caller, it seems they're actually correct, and it was actually me being civilian and having reverse expectation; sorry!

As to the hardline related communications, I'm trying to find a good point in the recording. For now I managed to find the eventual successful contact attempt here: https://youtu.be/zNklfC6jgBs?t=10746; I'll try to rewind and find esp. the earlier Endeavour responses & the Russian responses.

edit: Ok, here's some early fun with Russians: https://youtu.be/zNklfC6jgBs?t=6085, not yet sure if that's the 1st one but definitively a sample of what I meant. Still looking for more. edit 2: A bit more just seconds later: https://youtu.be/zNklfC6jgBs?t=6616


In your link to t=6085, I can't make out what the Russian voice is saying until he's counting. Can someone transcribe?


If you check SpaceX's stream on YouTube, they check the hardline communications with the Dragon capsule multiple times in the hour or so after hard capture.




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