Flying Mountain Rescue

[Ed]

https://www.nwas.nhs.uk/news/knowexactlywhere-in-an-emergency-with-what3words/

Is it this NWAS you are referring to? 

Yes. They ask the public to use what three words as that is simpler for none map savvy people to pass over the phone. For operational use it's still postcode/OSGB co-ordinates.

For instance:
12:12:36
INC 12345678
29B03X
About 300 yards before junction xx, Junction xx to xx xbound, Mx CAxx xXX
Unknown
Unknown Y
Car on fire on hard shoulder
GRD eeeeee nnnnnn

(real incident number and details that would specifically identify this live call removed)

FRS messages within North West Fire Control area are somewhat similar and also use postcode/full numerical OSGB co-ordinates.

North Yorkshire Fire is very ssimilar

 

[ZombieCake]

Looks like it needs a fair bit of tinkering to get to full 'Iron Man' operational status. 

 

[andrewmcleod]

Yes. They ask the public to use what three words as that is simpler for none map savvy people to pass over the phone. For operational use it's still postcode/OSGB co-ordinates.

If you are going to write it down, OSGB is a perfectly good system, but a word-based system like WW3 should be much better than OSGB for transmission by voice (especially when over noisy radio links). Unfortunately, not only is WW3 a commercial system with minimal IP but very good marketing, it's also a very poor implementation of a word-based system. It uses long complicated words and (worst of all) there are homophones in the word list.

A better system would use 4/5 words, drawn from a shorter, simpler word list with no homophones and using a different word list for the first/second/third/fourth word (so that order of the words is no longer important). You could increase the size of the grid (say 40m x 40m for the three words version) to simplify the word list for the 3-word version, and add a fourth (or fifth) word to narrow it down closer.

It wouldn't even be that hard to do, and I think had already been done before (as a toy on the Internet) before WW3 developed their system...

Unfortunately, that's not how its worked out...

 

[mikem]

Similar to the QWERTY keyboard being designed to slow typists down.

 

[zzzzzzed]

If you could strap one of the jets to the side of your welly - like a pantin - you could just slide up the rope.

You could call it a 'No Panting'.

 

[Fishes]

If you could strap one of the jets to the side of your welly - like a pantin - you could just slide up the rope.

You could call it a 'No Panting'.

And probably no rope

 

[mikem]

At least you would only burn out the rope below you (so not recommended for descending, or the rest of your team!)