Pointless Radio Terms

[AJ Hidell]

There is no aspect of EMS where the pointless "monkey see - monkey do" culture exists than in radio communications. There are so many things that people say on the radio for no other reason than that's what they heard someone else say, without ever giving a single intelligent thought to why they should or should not say it. Here's my list of the top annoying things that people say on the radio:

Be advised - (ex. "Be advised we're transporting.") Could there possibly be a more pointless term?

Gonna be - (ex. "Be advised we're gonna be transporting to...") Don't tell me what you're "gonna be" doing. Tell me what you are doing.

At this time - (ex. "Be advised we're gonna be transporting at this time") Everything you say should be at this time. It is things that are in the past or future that should be qualified.

Times 1 - ("Be advised we're gonna be transporting times 1 at this time...") No kidding, Captain Obvious! We dispatched you to a chest pain. We weren't exactly expecting that you'd be transporting multiple patients. No clarification needed!

Subject - (ex. "Medic 3 respond to a subject having chest pain.") Subject is a term for a person of interest who does not fit into any other category. A patient is not a subject. A victim is not a subject. A caller is not a subject. An assailant is not a subject.

Complainant - (ex. "Medic 3, be advised your complainant fell and hit his head.") Complainant is a legal term in law enforcement, not a medical patient or a caller for that patient. They're not complaining. They are requesting our services.

Anyone have any others? Feel free to add your own.

 

[BorderDog]

UGH!!!

The use of the word "copy" should be smitten into the deepest caves and covered in snot from a thousand rotting eels.

It has has too many annotations and connotations to mean everything from:

Do you understand?:unsure:
I understand,:huh:
Repeat this,
Forward this.

Copy? Copy. Roger? Roger. Over? Out.

 

[akflightmedic]

Awesome AJ!

Yes you hit the big ones, I will give this some more thought and get back to ya.

One of my annoyances is more of a pronunciation thing than wrong term, but when people say "on root" instead of en route...

 

[Silverstone]

Could be like my medics.

"CMED, adam 45 is en route routine to Mercy Hospital, one patient, no riders, miles are 0.0."

All I need to hear is:

"45 routine Mercy"

It annoys me to know end when people talk and talk and talk aimlessly.

 

[AJ Hidell]

It annoys me to know end when people talk and talk and talk aimlessly.

There are definitely some people who are impressed by the sound of their own voices. I worked at one agency that had a full-duplex radio system (do they still teach what that is in EMT school?). That means, when you were talking on the radio, you could actually hear yourself talking on the radio speaker at the same time, just like a land line telephone. A lot of people obviously got off on hearing themselves and would add way more to their transmissions than was needed, often changing up their voices as if they were a disk jockey or something, lol. It was hella annoying.

The "on route" thing is funny! I hadn't thought of that. I have listened to people argue back and forth about how "enroute" should be pronounced though, lol.

 

[firecoins]

Times 1 - ("Be advised we're gonna be transporting times 1 at this time...") No kidding, Captain Obvious! We dispatched you to a chest pain. We weren't exactly expecting that you'd be transporting multiple patients. No clarification needed!

We use this term to inform dispatch we have someone in addition to the patient. 10-4 over

 

[benkfd]

We have a dispatcher that always wants us to "Make" things....."Make such and such an address for difficulty breathing".......... WE CAN'T MAKE ANYTHING RIGHT NOW WE'RE BUSY!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL :huh:

 

[Sasha]

UGH!!!

The use of the word "copy" should be smitten into the deepest caves and covered in snot from a thousand rotting eels.

It has has too many annotations and connotations to mean everything from:

Do you understand?:unsure:
I understand,:huh:
Repeat this,
Forward this.

Copy? Copy. Roger? Roger. Over? Out.

I prefer "Copy" to "10-4" when there is no other use of ten codes.

Copy means I got it. I understand. "Do you copy?" means "Do you understand?" Repeat is "Please repeat"

One thing that drove me up the wall when I worked was when I needed to go on scene or arrival or transporting and someone was giving a long drawn out "radio report" going through the sample.. the kind the nurse should be getting AT the hospital, not en route!

 

[Sasha]

Be advised - (ex. "Be advised we're transporting.") Could there possibly be a more pointless term?

The only time I've ever used "Be advised" is when everyone on the road got a pager message "You must advise dispatch of ALL RECIEVED PAGES!"

So every page anyone got was:

"Unit 104 to dispatch, be advised we recieved page." "Unit 128 to dispatch be advised we copy times"

 

[JPINFV]

"Over and out" because people who use this obviously have no clue what "over" and "out" means.

 

[lightsandsirens5]

Awesome AJ!

Yes you hit the big ones, I will give this some more thought and get back to ya.

One of my annoyances is more of a pronunciation thing than wrong term, but when people say "on root" instead of en route...

I just found out that, in my state at least, when you are going to an emergency you are not "en-route", you are "responding". Apparently, you can only be "en-route" on non call-out stuff. (En-route back to the barn, etc....)

 

[mycrofft]

"On root" is phonetically correct..."en route" is French.

Kinda like "Mai'dez" meaning "Help me" and we pronounce it "Mayday".

"Be advised" tells the receiver "get your pencil". But not in French. Usually is at the beginning of an exchange or used as accentuation during one.

Yeah we get our radio habits stuck good. I still accidentally pop out an occasional "10-4".

 

[medic417]

I hate the "Ten" codes. In fact they were recommended done away with one of the large grants that was to help communications be more uniform.

 

[reaper]

NIMS did away with the 10 codes. Every service should be NIMS compliant by now, so every one should be using plain text!

Copy that?
Over and out!

 

[Buzz]

The only time I've ever used Be Advised was to alert dispatch to a traffic accident with lane closures thus causing a major route of travel to take longer than usual so that they could either alert other units or give appropriate ETAs to facilities along that route.

We still use ten codes... Not entirely sure why. Our dispatchers respond the same if I say En route to... or if I say 10-5 to.... Keeping the "Send LE assistance immediately with no questions asked" code is kind of nice though. I'd rather someone not know what I was saying into the radio if I was stuck in a hostile scene.

 

[AJ Hidell]

Keeping the "Send LE assistance immediately with no questions asked" code is kind of nice though. I'd rather someone not know what I was saying into the radio if I was stuck in a hostile scene.

A policy I instituted at the last agency I managed was to prohibit the use of any 10-codes, except in an emergency. The use of any 10-code, no matter what it was, was a distress call. That way, if dispatch was checking on you, and you said everything was 10-4, you were alerting them of distress without alerting anyone around you to that distress call. Knowing that they were going to get a massive police response within seconds served as a very good deterrent to whackers falling back into their 10-code habits!

 

[karaya]

...so every one should be using plain text!

Wanna bet?

 

[spisco85]

I might be biased but I think the military should instruct everyone how to talk on a radio. None of this "Me to you," BS when we should be using it like a phone "Hey you, its me," lets the person know who you are trying to get a hold of and who you are.

Also numbers. Numbers get me amped up when people say "eighty" instead of "eight-zero"

Oooo!! And letters. its "Lima Eight-zero" not "L eighty"

Cuts down on all the "repeat your last" requests. I miss the Military radio...

 

[AJ Hidell]

Back in the 80s, after Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers, there was an influx of them into EMS. It resulted in a significant improvement in radio procedures in my area as people began to emulate their style, which was along the military style you mention. The only drawback was that a lot of those guys were seriously high-strung type-A's who were hard to get along with for 12 hours a day. They were very intelligent and detail oriented though, and otherwise made great medics.

 

[abckidsmom]

Kinda like "Mai'dez" meaning "Help me" and we pronounce it "Mayday".

"Be advised" tells the receiver "get your pencil". But not in French. Usually is at the beginning of an exchange or used as accentuation during one.

Yeah we get our radio habits stuck good. I still accidentally pop out an occasional "10-4".

Just a note: the french is m'aider. It literally means "help me". Just wanted to put a plug in for spelling, even in another language.