I’m on a wing radio course this weekend, the pre-work is to write the explanations to each proword. One proword listed is ‘Contact’ I can’t find it anywhere, I am assuming you would not use it in the aviation way of ‘Contact XXX on frequency YYY’. Surely it could be misinterpreted similarly to saying repeat rather than say again if it was to mean that? :huh:
Any ideas would be much appreciated as I cannot find it in any of the ultilearn or ACP 44 materials. We don’t have a sqn radio officer and only one person has done the course before and they don’t know either. Rifle
‘Contact’ is a ground field tactical proword (probably listed in ACP45, but also in most other non-Air Cadet military voice procedures.
It means ‘Contact has been made with an enemy or currently-unidentified force’ and/or an enagement/attack is in progress.
A classic sequence might be
"Hello Six One Charlie, this is Six One Alpha, Message, Over"
“Six One Alpha this is Charlie, CONTACT, Wait Out” (ie shove off, we are being shot at)
wilf_san
ps in aeronautical voice procedures, the proword ‘Contact’ is an instruction for the receiving station to change frequency (eg to approach/talk-down, or another controller etc). See CAP 413
I had a feeling about that but it doesn’t seem like it will be much use at Halton unless they are planning on putting us in a field in greens for the weekend. Thanks indeed though for the quick reply.
I used to fly with a QFI who used the term “contact” in the context of:
ATC: "G-XXXX, traffic to the south at […]"
QFI: “…Contact.”
The first few times he said it I was tempted to say something witty like “Ha, they must have a good shot then.” but I don’t think it would have actually been massively appropriate… :unsure:
in this sense the prework you have been asked to complete the “Contact” is an instruction to contact someone
Callsign Alpha this is Control, over
Control this is Callsign Alpha send over
Callsign Alpha this is Control, contact Callsign Bravo request thier SITREP over
Control this is Callsign Alpha Wilco out
edit: note your JIs - the radio course is in blues (2C) so no you will not be running around in fields
Thanks it was just that I couldn’t find in listed as a proper proword. And I realised I was looking at the JIs for an old course at Halton when I started to sort the kit out for it.
“Contact” in this example simply isn’t a proword.[/quote]
now you point it out you’re right…but i know that is an example this Cadet will hear this weekend
i’ll have to feed back when i have spoken to the course leader…
“Contact” in this example simply isn’t a proword.[/quote]
now you point it out you’re right…but i know that is an example this Cadet will hear this weekend
i’ll have to feed back when i have spoken to the course leader…[/quote]
I don’t get any of this… :unsure:
CONTACT is a proword, so you shouldn’t be using it to mean something else. That’s how people get confused.
I was reading it while assuming that “Callsign Alpha” would be written as “” and would be substituted in its entirety by the actual callsign of that station.
eg: " THIS IS OVER "
As for the use of contact in that context, it happens to be the best word for the job. I’m not sure that “call”, “speak to” or “get in touch with” really cuts it. It is also (as has been said) a valid proword in CAP413, though I obviously realise that we aren’t speaking about CAP413 voice procedures here.
i asked and was got teh following reply
oh? take a look
ah yes, sorry that is the wrong (old) pre-work
did actually answer my question “what does the pro-word CONTACT indicate?” but it woudl seem there was an admin error and thus shouldnt have been included
If you think about it, Prowords are simply words or phrases which have been assigned meanings in order to expedite message handling, ie a word that we use as a substitute for something (Codenames are exactly the same). It’s logical to assume that the same word can also be used in its normal context and there is nothing to say that once a word is allocated for use as a Proword or Codename, you can’t use it in normal speech over the radio; whether it’s a Proword or not just depends on how you use it. For example, I could be in communication with someone and ask them, ‘AT WHAT TIME WILL F22A BE AT YOUR LOCATION?’ - in this context, time is just a ‘normal’ word. However, their reply might be, ‘F22A IS EXPECTED HERE AT TIME 0745Z’ - in this context, TIME is a Proword meaning what follows will be a time of day in 24 hour format. Others that spring to mind are GRID, BREAK and GROUPS, but there will be more. So whilst the Proword CONTACT has specific meaning for ground units in an operational or operational training environment as in ‘10A THIS IS G21A, CONTACT WAIT OUT’, it’s fairly obvious that it doesn’t mean the same as ‘ASCOT 3456 CONTACT BRIZE APPROACH ON 123.4’.
The issue wasn’t the use of the word “contact” in a sentence, it was that the OP had basically been told that it was a proword meaning “get in touch with…” which of course isn’t the case.
This was raised with those in charge by steve679 and corrected.
OK, so CONTACT itself isn’t a Proword that Air Cadets are likely to use and you won’t find it in ACP 44 or 45, but you will see CONTACT WAIT OUT and CONTACT AT in the Army Voice Communications Procedures Handbook, so to simply say it isn’t a Proword is not entirely correct; we’re just unlikely to use it as much as or in the same context as our Army colleagues (or others) would. If the earlier respondents have worked with the ACF, this could be where their enquiries originated? Equally, we steer our cadets away from using REPEAT because of its association with the Artillery repeating the previous fire mission and dropping the next lot of shots in the same place as the previous ones. But when did you ever hear of Air Cadets working in Observation Posts or being on exercises where live artillery will be used?
My original point remains the same though and it was simply intended as a comment that an actual word can be used in both its normal meaning and as Proword, and to simply tell cadets they can’t use a word at all is confusing for them.