Hi!
Again there is nothing wrong with the standard
I for one will never use your "de facto" standard when there is already one that has been in use for years and years and years.
What many are saying, and I agree with in a couple of situations, is that sometimes the standard ICAO/NATO phonetic alphabet just doesn't work well for a particular letter like K. On FM, I use Kilo, but go to Kilowatt in SSB (on satellites and HF). For some Spanish-speakers, I will go with a phonetic alphabet that is used many who speak that language to complete QSOs, along with speaking in Spanish (completely legal, provided my station ID is in English at the end of the QSO).
It is nice that this discussion has centered on the choice of words for the phonetic alphabet, instead of following past discussions here on the -BB where some advocated not using any phonetics. The message in K8YSE's e-mail is a good one, reinforced when I get the occasional e-mail from a Spanish-speaking satellite ham along with a WAV or MP3 file asking me to decipher the callsign (and sometimes grid) in the recording. I know I'm not the only one that gets these sorts of requests from those hams. Lately, it all centers on the stateside hams not using phonetics, and the Spanish- speaking hams not knowing the English "A, B, C, ... " alphabet.
If you hear those hams on the passes, go ahead and try to work them. They are looking to put more stations, states/provinces, grids, etc. in their logs as anyone else. Please keep in mind that English isn't their first language, and help them with the standard phonetics so they can log you correctly.
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/