Push-to-talk
technology in radio devices
Push-to-talk (PTT), also known as press-to-transmit, is a method of having conversations or talking on half-duplex communication lines, including two-way radio, using a momentary button to switch from voice reception mode to transmit mode.
History
For example, an air traffic controller usually supervises several aircraft and talks on one radio frequency to all of them. Those under the same frequency can hear others' transmissions while using procedure words such as "break", "break break" to separate order during the conversation (ICAO doc 9432). In doing so, they are aware of each other's actions and intentions. Unlike in a conference call, they do not hear background noise from the ones who are not speaking. Similar considerations apply to police radio, the use of business band radios on construction sites, and other scenarios requiring coordination of several parties. Citizens Band is another example of classic push-to-talk operation.
The PTT switch is most commonly located on the radio's handheld microphone, or for small hand-held radios, directly on the radio. For heavy radio users, a PTT foot switch may be used, and also can be combined with either a boom-mounted microphone or a headset with integrated microphone.
Less commonly, a separate hand-held PTT switch may be used.
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This entry incorporates text from “Push-to-talk” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.