[aprssig] aprssig Digest, Vol 53, Issue 7 (Blind APRS)

[Andy McMullin]

>>> ... MHz, or 14253,55 kHz. (the , being the european decimal
>>> separator).
>
>> I'm aware of this.  What do folks and/or speech synthesizers  
>> *speak* for this?  "comma"?  "point"?
>
> At least in the germanistic languages German, Nordic (and probably
> also in english) "komma" is used.

Whilst England is alleged to be in, or part of, Europe -- we do not  
now nor have we ever used a comma to mark the decimal point (it's Un- 
British so I paraphrase the Un-American Activities Committee). We use  
the full stop symbol. As such, in English we say "point" in general  
use (such as "Fourteen point two-five-two-five").

However, there is an international agreement that the spoken English  
for the decimal point is the word "decimal" -- which gets over all  
symbolic variances. It's the same agreement that defines the  
international phonetic alphabet -- the ICAO alphabet; also known (and  
apparently agreed) as the NATO, ITU, IMO, FAA, ANSI or INTERCO  
phonetic alphabet. It also says that each digit should be spoken  
separately -- giving "one four decimal two five two five"

But as you know, nobody likes international agreements so that would  
be "Fourteen decimal two-five-two-five", or even "Fourteen decimal two- 
five point two-five" if you like :-)

> The attempts to make APRS more accessible for blind radio amateurs are
> interesting.

Now that bit I do agree with; it also makes it easier for people  
driving along too!

-- 
Regards
Andy, G8TQH
http://www.rickham.net/


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