Right after McClane manages to get his hands on a radio, he calls the police for help. Although they don’t believe him, dispatch tells Sgt. Powell to check it out.
He responds and signs off, “8 Lincoln 30”. What phonetic alphabet is he using? The standard for “L” is Lima. Lincoln does not appear on the historical phonetic alphabets either.
Dennis
If you ever watched The Rockford Files, you’d know that the license plate on Jim’s Pontiac was Ocean King George 853, not Oscar Kilo Golf 853.
California police apparently do not adhere to the NATO/International phonetic alphabet, nor is there any real reason for them to do so. I suspect a lot of police forces (and other organizations as well ) use systems that are alternatives to the NATO alphabet.
The phonetic alphabet used by the US armed forces before the NATO alphabet was also different: Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, instead of Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and so on. (I think *Charlie *was the only letter that was kept.)
On MASH***, nurses were often called Able and Baker just as a means of identifying them in the script (i.e., instead of “Nurse #1” and “Nurse #2”). Later on, some of them were actually given real names … like Lt. Nakahara (which, IIRC, was the actress’s *real *real name.)
I haven’t watched The Dam Busters in a long time, but I think the British pilots in it use a slightly different version of the old US phonetic alphabet when they’re on the radio.
Roger, BTW, was replaced with Romeo in the new alphabet to avoid confusion, since “Roger” was also shorthand for “Message received.”
In Star Trek’s two-part episode “The Menagerie,” Starfleet apparently uses the old Able–Baker system, because that’s what Spock says when he tells the computer to take control of the Enterprise.
It looks like the LAPD and several other law enforcement agencies use a different phonetic alphabet, with some slight variations (since Die Hard takes place in LA).
It’s interesting to discover that there’s an official LAPD alphabet. Throughout numerous movies, I had always assumed they were just casually making up words.
Incidentally, it’s always pleasing to hear somebody using the NATO alphabet outside a context such as aviation where it’s expected – I was confirming a bank wire transfer over the phone yesterday and the clerk used it. I was kind of hoping she’d say Roger, Wilco when I asked her to try to get it out promptly.
I guess that explains why I could never find that cop show, Alpha-12, in the listings.
While a lot of people fall under the assumption that LAPD created everything in LE, that’s not the case. The LE phonetics is not theirs, and many agencies use those LE phonetics (and not just LAPD or even California).
LE phonetics:
Adam
Boy
Charles
David
Edward
Frank
George
Henry
Ida
John
King
Lincoln
Mary
Nora
Ocean
Paul
Queen
Robert
Sam
Tom
Union
Victor
William
X-ray
Yellow
Zebra
Now that the OP has been answered, can anyone tell me how Powell looked at the building while McClane was having a firefight on the roof (with automatic weapons, no less) and didn’t see the muzzle flashes or hear the shots?
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I last saw the movie in 1992, but I recall him looking up from the convenience store where he bought his Twinkies and seeing muzzle flashes on the roof of the building. Much too far away to hear the gunfire, though.
I see now that Mike, Victor, and *X-ray *were kept as well.
I learned the Army/Navy alphabet when I was in sixth grade. My memory needed jogging after fifty years.
It’s important to learn the phonetic alphabet…especially for those with children & pets. 
and tall buildings often have flashing beacon/warning lights for aircraft, so flashes at the top of a tower wouldn’t be out of place.
Oversea technical support uses it when repeating serial numbers.
I used it once reading the eye chart for the NY driver’s license. The clerk said “okay, that was different”
From what I remember from USCG boot camp, while most of the time they use the modern phonetic alphabet, there are a few instances where they kept the old system, such as on ship with what hatches should be kept closed (Zebra instead of Zulu). No, it didn’t make any sense to me as to why. In LORAN equipment, I was taught there was a master station and several secondary stations in each chain. Older techs used master/slave.
The NATO version is used here at work (nuclear facility).
McClane wasn’t on the roof yet. He was a few floors above Gruber. Note that he threw a body through the window onto Powell’s car, to get his attention.
But that just raises another question: if McClane’s primary job is to get a police presence at the tower, why doesn’t he just fire his gun? Gun shots get more attention than just calling, or even dropping a body (which could be suicide). Obviously, he shouldn’t shoot AT Powell, just close enough to get his attention.
And the other thing that always bothered me, to the point of disrupting my enjoyment of an otherwise fine film - when McClane calls on the radio to report the takeover, the person on the other end tells him to get off, as the frequency is for emergencies. But he IS reporting an emergency! The dispatcher’s incredible response is like if you called 911 to report a crime, and the dispatcher hanging up and telling you that 911 is for emergencies only!
Frankly, every cop and FBI in that movie, except Powell (and his donut-scarfing fat ass does not reflect highly on LAPD) was totally incompetent. I wish they wouldn’t make the heroes look good by making everyone else stupid in comparison.
Ham radio sometimes plays fast and loose with the phonetic alphabet. I remember many times when ‘kilo’ became ‘kilowatt’ and the sequence ‘KG’ was almost idiomatically ‘King George’ when part of a call sign.
McClane was on the roof when Powell looked up. He’d gone there to broadcast his emergency call, and Gruber figured out that’s where he’d be. A firefight on the roof ensued, and that’s what Powell saw.
It didn’t seem to make much of an impression on him, since (as you note) it took a dead body landing on his squad car to really get his attention. The subsequent barrage from the terrorists finally convinced him that some heavy shit was going down.