A question about police call signs

Question

You know the police call signs, i have a couple of police officers in my novel and i need them to mention their call sign, anyone know how they are assigned i.e do i just invent a number or is there some procedure that i should follow.

Answer 1

Generally the first letter or two letters denote the policing district, i.e Alpha, followed by a number or two numbers that denote the car beat within that district, i.e Alpha one one.

There are hundreds more call signs.

Supervisors are for example Alpha Sierra one, two, three, four etc. The Sierra denotes Sergeant.

Likewise an Inspector would be Alpha India one, two etc.

If you stick with a couple of letters and a couple of numbers you shouldn't go far wrong.

Answer 2

How about Adam 35 and Paul 35 or 4 Adam 30, 4 Adam 16, or

7 Mary 3 and 7 Mary 4.

Answer 3

call signs are made up of 2 letters and 1 or 2 numbers.

the first letter will be the district the officer is working in (for example say scarborough is k) then the second will be the local town or area the work within the  district, the numbers are generally insignificant, they apply to the officers who are allocated. each force has its own call signs.

this example does not exsist, K (scarborough) z (district) 79  = kz79

Answer 4

Choose two letters from the phonetic alphabet (as listed in a previous answer) and two numbers.

Answer 5

are you meaning a unit #? (like how an officer would identify himself over the radio)?  If so, there are different ways depending on each different department.  For example, in Indiana, the sherrif's dept # starts with the county # (each county is numbered in Indiana) and then the officers #. ( like 70-485) The State Police starts with the district # and then the officers #. (like 52-14)  The city police are just a number which is assigned in the order they are hired on. (like 225) I would imagine though that for the number of different departments across the country, there are probably that many different ways to assign the numbers.

Answer 6

As bear has answered, its usually a couple of letters and numbers.  It certainly is where I work.

If you are being specific to Hereford, I don't know the proper call sign but a suggestion could be HS 12 (hotel sierra 12) or similar.

Answer 7

Call signs vary from city to city and department to department. The call signs for assault in Detroit are different than the call signs for an assault in Indianapolis and Chicago.

If you're writing a book, my suggestions would be to schedule a ride-along with your local police department and ask them about the call signs for your area.  

Answer 8

Helps if you tell us which country/jurisdiction they are in

Answer 9

Alpha

Bravo

Charlie

Delta

Echo

Foxtrot

Gulf

Hotel

India

Juliet

Kilo

Lima

Mike

November

Oscar

Papa

Quebec

Romeo

Sierra

Tango

Uniform

Victor

Whisky

X-ray

Yankee

Zulu

You just use i.e Juliet Bravo 7 or whatever.

Hope this helps.

Answer 10

Police call signs are not universally the same, every deprtment uses its own designations.  They can sometimes be similar but they usually are distinctly different.  As for the phonetic alphabet, there are also diferences here as well; the example given in in a prior answer used the military phonetic alphabet, but many departments use a more common variation such as "Adam," Charley," "John," King," Paul," etc.