Whiskey Tango

People often use the NATO alphabet when communicating over noisy communications channels. This phonetic alphabet assigns a code word to each letter — Alfa for A, Bravo for B — so words can be spelled out using specific words that can be heard clearly over radio or phone in noisy conditions. This app was built by an amateur radio operator to help with emergency communications training, and grew out of a real exercise for a local ham group used to sharpen recall of the NATO phonetic alphabet under pressure. It’s also a great way to refresh your memory if you haven’t used it for a while. Though this app targets amateur radio enthusiasts, pilots, maritime operators, call center operators, emcomm volunteers or anyone who wants to have Alfa through Zulu at their mental fingertips may find this a useful way to practice. There are four activities in the app that let you explore different aspects of using the NATO alphabet. Sorting letters, reading text, speaking words and hearing words spelled out using that alphabet. Some activities can be configured to provide hints to help when you get started. The app uses a built-in vocabulary of words to practice with, some of these are amateur radio and emergency communication terms, others are more everyday. The vocabulary also can optionally include your call sign and Maidenhead Locator. Alternatively you can choose to practice solely on digitally generated amateur radio call signs. The word selection for any activity is partially adaptive — though chosen at random, it tries to give you more practice on the letters you find more difficult to recall, and provides some coaching help by noting genuine milestones. Your progress is assessed via both cumulative statistics for each activity, and a pace and accuracy chart. If you want to do your own analysis, the data underlying this chart can be exported as a CSV file. The listening activity reads out NATO alphabet words. You can use the default voice, or download one or more high quality English voices via the Settings app, and audition them for pronunciation as some handle certain NATO words more clearly than others. Built-in support for large accessibility text sizes, VoiceOver, and reduced-motion preferences throughout. No ads, no accounts, no web analytics, no in-app purchases, no tracking.