Posted: 3/18/2026 3:55:23 PM EDT
| For depts with at least 800 officers, do you have a permanent sign? How does you call sign work if you're working OT in a different part of town and on a different channel? What happens if you run as a two man unit? |
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Road patrol ID by District shift zone. Districts are divided by cities or contracts areas like a port or airport. Shifts were day and night but we used to run 8 hours shifts so we ran Alpha Bravo Charlie.. So generally we would get an assigned zone on our shifts so we would be the same call sign every night but we could be moved around and have to use different calls from time to time. Then the district special units would get their own call signs kilo units were detetives, yankee for narcotics, tango for motor units. Then we had the agency wide detectives that were just referred to as Kilo3xx or kilo4xx one being homicide the other robbery and 2xx for the agg battery detectives and another for crime scene.. Sgts were Deltas, echo LTs, Sierra were command. |
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Originally Posted By urbanredneck: Road patrol ID by District shift zone. Districts are divided by cities or contracts areas like a port or airport. Shifts were day and night but we used to run 8 hours shifts so we ran Alpha Bravo Charlie.. So generally we would get an assigned zone on our shifts so we would be the same call sign every night but we could be moved around and have to use different calls from time to time. Then the district special units would get their own call signs kilo units were detetives, yankee for narcotics, tango for motor units. Then we had the agency wide detectives that were just referred to as Kilo3xx or kilo4xx one being homicide the other robbery and 2xx for the agg battery detectives and another for crime scene.. Sgts were Deltas, echo LTs, Sierra were command. I'm on a committee for shit like this and need input. I'm saying it's not going to work, but lookig for input on how it would work We have six zones with patrol and zone sgt's and Lt's uses 4 diget call signs, 31**, 32**, 33**, etc. Our defectives use 5 digit call signs, bosses use 3 digit call signs. The problem I see is working overtime in a differnt zone with a permanent call signs. I'm 34** and working OT in say zone 2, as it is now I would get a 3200 call sign. Using some arbitary number would make it too confusing because we would always be like who the fuck is that. |
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I've had permanent (changed annually) & by daily assignment. Some good & bad with both. A lot of that difference is with the size of the agency. I've worked where I could put a face to every voice & ones where I had no clue who was transmitting. For overtime / off duty, the best system I saw was using an officer's personal number, (badge/payroll etc.) preceded by "MOBILE". This gave a heads up that you might need a unit for transport, be in plain clothes, off duty; etc. For two-man units, we commonly followed the number with "BRAVO". |
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We just use badge numbers for patrol. Switching up calling’s made issues with cads. Supervisors have a number that denotes shift and letter that denotes zone. But that is that’s supervisor call sign all the time. It adds confusion when you have people that work different areas or beats and they need to remember what their call sign is for the day. It creates a records issue when cads doesn’t have the name attached to the number. Specialties or command just says assignment or rank if the need to. The simpler and more consistent the better. |
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We have around 1,300 officers, down from 1,700, & 6 districts. -Adam -Baker -Charles -David -Edward -Frank The distric commander is the district letter & 1, the district captains 2 & 3 -A1 district commander -A2 day watch captain -A3 night watch capt Shift unit numbers, there's 4 shifts now, are 100 for days, 200 for middles, 300 for lates & 400 for late-tac. Lt is always *01, sgts *11-14 & patrol *20-however many. That way you know what their disctrct, shift & ranks is. District det & narcs are 10s numbers -A101 day shift Lt -A111 day shift sgt -A121 day shift patrol -A180 day shift evidence tech -A201 middle Lt -A211 middle sgt -A221 middle patrol -A280 middle ET -A10 detective Lt -A11 det sgt -A20 det -A50 Narcs sgt -A51 Narc det This helps when people are working OT on other districts, which happens all the time. Squirrel units, homicide, robbery, sex crimes, etc are all 2000 unit numbers (2132, etc) & chief & big brass are Car, chief is Car-1, asst-chief Car-2, etc & K9 is K1 Lt, K2 sgt, K12 patrolman, etc. I hope this helps. We don't do 2-man cars & the few times we do we both log-on with our unit number, that way if we key up it shows who we are. |
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My department was much smaller than that, 135 sworn but we had permanent call signs. The number was assigned to you throughout your career, regardless of your assignment. If you change assignments from say patrol to traffic, it went from a bravo prefix to a tango prefix but your number after that prefix stayed the same regardless. If you were in administration, it was an alpha prefix and if you were a detective, delta. They kept it super simple that way. When I was a fed, your call sign would change depending on the enforcement group you were assigned to, which became confusing. When I transitioned to Aviation, our call signs were assigned individually, but it was while you were in that office so if you transferred to a different post somewhere, it would shift to one of the call signs from that office that you took over. I kind of get it in that respect because of how our TO was set up but I much preferred how it was when I was a patrol cop. Anytime somebody heard 204 they knew it was me regardless of the prefix plus we knew most of each other‘s voices anyway call sign or not which was nice. |
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NYPD has the call sign assigned to the car or sector, not the officer. Car(sector) call signs are precinct # followed by A,B,C,D... So the marked units in the 44 precinct would be 44adam, 44charlie, etc etc... Foot posts are numbered, post 130, post 145, post 120, etc etc. Except for housing units, those are the actual car fleet number... So housing 9222, housing 4533 etc... Just to keep it confusing... Cops on a foot post are numbered for the location, post 130, post 145, post 120, etc etc. The only ones who get permanent call signs are the top brass. Commissioner and chiefs are always car-1, car-2, car 3 etc etc. Regardless of what vehicle they may be in, even if they are on a portable radio, they are still car-1... Feds in my current agency are given a call sign thats yours while you are in that office ie NY 3455... Only time that changes is if you leave the office, you will get a new call sign when you get to your new office, or if you get promoted. My last agency everyone kept the same call sign in while they were in that office even if they got promoted. |
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Originally Posted By hodgescl: The simpler and more consistent the better. |
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Long retired, 800 plus, I developed 10 hour shift, 3 shifts only verses 5. Old way was 2 overlap on 8 hours. Each Precinct has zones and shifts designated as A, B & C, assigned daily and not always the same officer, although for "ownership" mostly the same. If an officer had a department paid part time within a zone, would be an "X" designation, private part time was "F". Sergeant and above had permanent call sign but still adhere to above suffixes. If manpower allowed, extra zone unit would simply have a number suffix in addition to the Alpha(120A/120A1, etc.) If having an at large precinct wide unit had different number to ID (148/49A) Days off bid every 6 months, 4 on, 3 off, same days off, etc. |
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Never used permanent call signs except when I worked at a smaller agency. All the others around us, and the larger agency I worked for used numbers or number/letter/number call signs to designate the role of the person on the radio. Some days I used up to 3 or 4 different call signs as I switched from doing patrol supervision to doing traffic OT to doing riot control stuff. Wasn’t too confusing for any of us, once in a while someone would say their main call sign, but dispatch could see who it was keying up by radio ID so it would get sorted out. Not sure how permanent call signs would work at an even larger agency, seems like that would be confusing as hell as you would not know the neighboring district call signs from day to day, especially if people were filling in on OT. Hell of a lot simpler when the district call sign never changes. |
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We had semi permanent call signs. We had an odd set up though being a statewide non city type niche LE mission. Basically you had your call sign that was tied to the geographic area you were responsible for. I guess it would confuse dispatch especially as we used outside dispatchers of other agencies often. If two of us were riding together I’d try to use just one call sign if we were talking with dispatch. Though it’s easy enough to use your own naturally out of habit. I’d tend to use the call sign of whose car we were using as it was on the plates but often you’d get a call to your own call sign as someone was looking for you with no idea of your day’s plan. Then of course you just use your own call. If you transferred to another part of the state that new item had its own call sign that was now yours. Oh and take home cars were financially great! 
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The only hyphenated names I like are cartridge names......30-06, 30-40, 38-55 etc.