AMA: Oscar to Tango.

Part three of the lessons on American manual alphabet (AMA) and NATO phonetic alphabet.

Oscar: Possibly the easiest sign of them all! The hand looks a bit like it is adjusting a camera lens, which may help you remember the phonetic.

Papa: A first glance this looks like Golf with the palm downwards. Papa is a Pointing gesture. The thumb and second finger pinch together to further distinguish this sign. Mindhacker tells us “Papa snaps his fingers”.

Quebec: Quebec is in Canada and so are Canada geese. This sign uses a bent wrist to make a shape like a goose head.

Romeo: Romeo crosses his fingers hoping true love will prevail.

Sierra: A fully clenched fist. Compare to the signs for Alpha and Echo. The US military uses this hand signal to mean “Stop”, which is another “S” word. Mindhacker uses the concept of “coming to blows over the treasure of the Sierra Madre”. That helps getting the phonetic right.

Tango: Like Sierra but the Thumb is placed between the first and second fingers. Mindhacker has a phrase about a dance judge giving your Tango the evil eye, alluding to the fig sign being used to ward off evil.

Another lesson tomorrow.

         If you have enjoyed this article or it has been helpful to you please feel free to show your appreciation. Thank you.
The Books

AMA: Golf to November.

Part two of the lessons on American manual alphabet (AMA) and NATO phonetic alphabet. The good news is that today’s signs are very easy and that learning them takes you past the halfway point!

Golf: Mindhacker suggests “This way to the links” to remember this, reflecting that it resembles a pointing finger. Personally I just remember it as a single finger version of Hotel, the next letter. Remember the “palm towards the viewer” rule. Your finger should point outward.

Hotel: Like Golf, but with two fingers. Mindhacker observes this looks like a key being presented to a Hotel door. Many Hotels now use cards, but you can think of the two fingers holding a card if you want. Use what helps you remember.

India: “Raise your little finger like drinking a fine tea from India”. This sign actually helps me with remembering the phonetic rather than the reverse.

Juliet: “Juliet made Romeo pinky swear their love”. Make the sign for India and use your little finger to draw a “J” in the air. The hook of the J goes outwards.

 

Kilo: Mindhacker tells us “a Kilo is about two pounds” reminding the user that this sign uses two fingers. I find it more useful to think of it as the sign where the thumb goes between the Knuckles of two straight fingers.

Lima: A very easy one! The “loser” sign with the thumb inwards. “Losers leave Lima beans.”

Mike: A clenched fist sign, but with the palm downwards. The tip of the thumb is placed between the third and last finger. The three fingers together make a shape resembling an “m”.

November: The same as Mike, but with the thumb tip in the middle. The two pairs of fingers look like elevens, and November is the eleventh month.

Another lesson tomorrow.

         If you have enjoyed this article or it has been helpful to you please feel free to show your appreciation. Thank you.
The Books

AMA: Alpha to Foxtrot.

Recently I have started dipping into a book called “Mindhacker” by Ron and Marty Hale-Evans. The first section I read was a suggestion that the NATO phonetic alphabet and ASL fingerspelling be taught synchronously. As will be seen, learning the two together actually helps with memorizing some of the words or signs.

Learning these systems has obvious advantages if you find yourself in high noise or low noise situations. I cover some useful hand signals in my book Survival Weapons: Optimizing Your Arsenal. ASL fingerspelling, aka American manual alphabet (AMA) provides a useful compliment to these. Potentially one can create a sort of syllabary where one or two letters stand for longer commands. For example, the sign or command “Lima” or “Lima One” would instruct a unit to adopt a skirmish line formation.

You may already know the phonetic alphabet, or at least some of it. The basic AMA system is very easy to learn. The 26 basic letters are represented by 22 symbols. Learning four to six per day is no great feat. Probably you will pick it up at a much faster rate. The next few blogs will be about learning symbols, with some commentary from Mindhacker or from myself that I hope may help make learning them easier.

Fingerspelling is not sign language. It is a supplemental system useful for when a sign is not known or does not exist. There is a British fingerspelling system, incidentally, but this needs both hands to make many letters so the AMA system has the edge for our purposes.

The conventions when using AMA are:

• Signs are made with the dominant hand at shoulder level.
• Palm is directed towards the viewer.
• Double letters are made by bouncing the hand, waving it sideways or remaking the sign.

Alpha/ Alfa: This is a clenched fist with the thumb at the side pointing upwards. There a number of signs based on the clenched fist and the position of the thumb is important. Mindhacker suggests this sign is remembered by thinking of an Alpha male rising their hand in triumph.

Bravo: Bravo is the open palm. Remember is as though you are going to applaud while crying “bravo, bravo!” Folding the thumb across the palm makes it look more like a “b”.

Charlie: Charlie is the hand forming the letter “C” so no complex aide memoir are really necessary. Since the sign is directed towards the viewer the open side of the symbol is inwards.

Delta: Delta is the upraised index finger. Mindhacker suggests you imagine pointing up at a Delta-winged plane above.

Echo: Echo is best thought of as a semi-clenched fist, as though you are holding something. The thumb is under the fingers, which I suppose does somewhat resemble an “e”. This symbol may be easier if you place the tip of the thumb on the fingernail of the little finger.

Foxtrot: The hand form usually shown for Foxtrot seems to resemble the sign for the number “9”. Mindhacker seems to suggest the symbol resembles the “OK” gesture and that the phrase “The judge in the dance contest thought your Foxtrot was magnifique!” helps. South African (and Irish) fingerspelling seems to use a modified sign where the Forefinger is bent at 90 degrees to make an “f”-like shape. Personally I think that is a much better symbol and worth wider adoption.

More signs tomorrow!

         If you have enjoyed this article or it has been helpful to you please feel free to show your appreciation. Thank you.
The Books

Bogota the Abus!

The failure of the Mad Bob Bogotas to open my Abus padlock bothered me. Certainly they worked fine on all other locks I tried, but I had intended these picks for my emergency kits, so they were likely to be the only picks that I had available in certain situations. There was nothing actually wrong with them as picks. Used with the turning tool from my Serenity kit they popped the Abus open. It was as turning tools that they were lacking.

It is a common consensus among lock pickers that the form of turning tool is often more important than the pick used, and here was a fine example.

Constructing turning tools had proved more involved than expected. The usually suggested material is the steel strips found in windscreen wiper inserts. Unfortunately my area has very few locations where I could scrounge these. Yesterday I popped out to the shops and what should I come across lying on the pavement? A damaged wiper blade that yielded two steel strips each nearly a foot long! I would construct some turning tools to carry with my Mad Bob Bogotas and foil any locks that turned out to be as temperamental as the Abus!

It was the work of a few minutes to cut, bend and finish the material. I try one in the Abus, using my Dangerfield Bogota. The lock opens! But being a scientist, I have to refine my experiment. I try a Mad Bob and one of my new tools. Won’t open!

I compare my wiper steel turning tools with the one in the Serenity kit I had modelled them. The only difference is the thickness of the steel! The wiper steel is similar in thickness to that of the Bogotas, the kit tool much thicker. Not much I can do about that, or was there?

The thinner tools were rotating too much in the keyway and not transmitting sufficient torque. I hit upon the idea of slightly bending the long arm of the wiper turning tool. It sat better in the keyway, but prevented to tool fully inserting. I straightened it out a little and attempted to Bogota the Abus. It worked! Try again with the Mad Bob Bogota. Also worked!

Since the wiper turning tools were of similar thickness to the Mad Bob Bogotas, the next step was obvious. I bent the handles of the single-hump picks to approximate that of the turning tools. This did the trick. The paired tools now open the lock. Later, I will bend the handles of the rakes so they act as better turning tools for the single-humps.

Shown in the image. Wiper steel turning tools made today and Mad Bob Bogotas. Note bending of turning tools and some Bogota handles. 

         If you have enjoyed this article or it has been helpful to you please feel free to show your appreciation. Thank you.
The Books