Why no ZK-Qxx regos?

[ZacYates]

Evening all!

Quick question tonight - why are registrations with the initial letter Q prohibited in NZ? Wikipedia, my oracle of research, says that ICAO has prohibited them. Why?

[bigal]

I think the officals consider a Q to look to similar to an O

[Bruce]

because phoentically they're a pig of a thing when making radio calls! (I did my PPL on ZK-EOQ...)

[ErrolC]

I assume to avoid confusion with O.

At work, I inherited customer account codes of six character alphanumeric format. Worst thing is, in the old system they were assigned, not specified (so you asked for a new account, it told you that it was eg "2T1L01"), but it didn't do anything about trying to avoid confusable characters. So there are actual account codes like "2RIO01". Did I mention that it is common for these codes to be handwritten on grubby forms? Talk about unnecessary hassle.

[slackie]

EOQ, EOO, and EQM...none of them were easy to say!! All MDAC PA38s if I'm not mistaken?! Did my PPL in them too, way back in the 80's.

[slackie]

And if thy are too similar to Os, then why are Qs allowed anywhere?

[thomarse]

Good point Slackie

They don't appear in NZ motor vehicle registrations either

[Dave Homewood]

Perhaps that registration block has been reserved for the Q Branch?

[flyinkiwi]

Nov 24, 2009 20:56:47 GMT 12 slackie said:

EOQ, EOO, and EQM...none of them were easy to say!! All MDAC PA38s if I'm not mistaken?! Did my PPL in them too, way back in the 80's.

EOQ was a C152 belonging to the Waikato Aero Club for almost 30 years before being sold to make way for some shiny new Alpha's. The next owner wasn't so lucky and EOQ was sadly written off in a landing accident.

[angelsonefive]

I think it would be to avoid confusion with the "Q Code."
For example QNH, QFE, QSY, QDM etc.



For many years "R" was not allocated for the last letter in a rego./callsign.
Similar reason. To avoid confusion with Roger meaning "Your message received and understood."
Now that Romeo has replaced Roger in the international phonetic alphabet the possibility no longer exists.

[slackie]

EOQ....oh yeah...knew I recognised it!!

[ox]

They allow Q regs in Aus - Qantaslink Q400s were QOA->

[planewriting]

The prohibition of the letter "Q" to start a registration has interested me for years and I have still to find out why it is supposedly in place. CAA tell me that ICAO ban it so we can't, for example have ZK-QAA. Ox correctly points out that it is however used by QANTAS link. None of the above posts specifically identifies which ICAO rule states it cannot be used. Perhaps, given the Australian examples the rule has been changed and CAA have not adopted the change to date.

Can any reader provide an update (and any applicable ICAO rule number) on the current ruling? I can understand why there may be some exclusions within that range recorded above by angelsonefive such as QNH etc but not for anything else.

Referring Thomarse's post on 25/11/09; the letter Q is in use on New Zealand motor vehicles. The four excluded letters are I, O, V and X. The exception being when those letters are requested on a personalised plate.

[madmax]

I seem to recall reading many years ago the reason the letter Q is not used is that it could be confused with altimeter settings (QNH, QFE etc) during a radio communication. Maybe someone can verify this

[chinapilot]

Yep - as madmax says - confusion with the myriad Q codes.

[Brett]

It comes down to radio transmitter call-signs.

ZK-, ZL- and ZM- are the call-sign prefixes allocated to NZ by the International Telecommunication Union, and have been adopted by the ICAO for national aircraft registers because all international aircraft have radios, right?

Q-codes were originally developed for maritime radio communication in the age of Morse code transmissions between users who spoke different languages. Over time this included aviation, and now Q-codes are administered by three different groups:
QAA–QNZ are assigned by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO);
QOA–QQZ by the Maritime Mobile Service
QRA–QUZ by the International Telecommunications Union (Radio-communication Sector).

Because of this the ITU limits the use of the letter Q, and this has been replicated by ICAO.

The restriction seems to be just on codes starting with Q, as several countries have a Q in their identifier (including Fiji - DQ-Fxx).

Australia seems to have been exempted from following the rules, as their land-based radio stations don't use the correct prefixes either.

Rather than looking at ICAO regulations, I would suggest looking at the ITU Radio Regulations

[scrooge]

When did NZ start excluding V from number plates? My parents had a car with a V in it in the 80's.

[tbf25o4]

Brett is correct in that the restrictions on certain letters to be used are based on radio communications and rules set by the ITU which ICAO adopted

[planewriting]

Thank you Brett and tbf2504 for your explanations. My original idea was to suggest to CAA that they use the QAA - QZZ range on gliders, which have all but used up their GAA - GZZ range. The idea is similar to that applied to helicopters with the adoption of the IAA - IZZ range. Q would have have been good for the (comparatively) Quiet aircraft in our skies. As has happened with helicopters, there are now several triplicated glider registrations including re-use on the same type.

[johnm]

FCQ was definitely a 'Q' branch plane ! - a C152

between ruffly 1982 to 1984 my log says I flew with intrepid Napier instructors J Fulton - A Baig - G Peacock & G Urquart ..........and solo time