The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) phonetic alphabet is generally understood by hams in all countries. If we listen to a two-way amateur wireless conversation for the first time in our life, we would come across certain words, which perhaps we never heard before! There is every possibility that we mistake those words to be some kind of secret codes! These words in fact are internationally used to do plain language (conversation in secret code language is not allowed in amateur radio communication) conversation and known as phonetics .

A ham radio operator has to face different types of hurdles during an ongoing communication. There may be static noise, signal fading, interference from other station operating at close frequencies, local noises in the radio room, unusual voice accents of the other operator, improper pronunciation of words. During these and many other difficulties, it has been found that use of phonetics improves the intelligibility in communication. For example, the letter 'D' in represented by the word 'Delta' in phonetics while the letter 'B' is represented by 'Bravo'. To distinguish 'M' from 'N', hams use the words 'Mike' and 'Nancy' respectively.