In case of some interference or just to confirm how your message was received you may need to ask about the reception. In this instance we use “HOW DO YOU COPY?” or even shorter “HOW COPY?” To ask about general quality of the reception you may also ask “HOW DO YOU READ?”.

There are two ways of responding to such questions. You may simply answer “COPY LOUD AND CLEAR”(=”LIMA CHARLIE”) if the quality is equal to 5 or give the answerer the notion of the signal quality by giving the note from 1 to 5.

Example: COPY 3 by 5

The meaning of numbers used in assessment over the radio:

1 = Bad (unreadable)
2 = Poor (readable now and then)
3 = Fair (readable but with difficulty)
4 = Good (readable)
5 = Excellent (perfectly readable)