Tactical designator
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2009) |
| This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; suggestions may be available. (December 2009) |
Police units in the United States tend to use a tactical designator (or tactical callsign) consisting of a letter of the police radio alphabet followed by one or two numbers. For example, "Mary One" might identify the head of a city's homicide division. Police and fire department radio systems are assigned official callsigns, however. Examples are KQY672 and KYX556. The official headquarters callsigns are usually announced at least hourly, and more frequently by Morse code.
The United States Army uses tactical designators that change daily. They normally consist of letter-number-letter prefixes identifying a unit, followed by a number-number suffix identifying the role of the person using the callsign.