Originally Posted by
sabenaboy
I have been flying for over 20 years now as an airline pilot. Never in those years have I heard a genuine emergency call on 121.5! However, several times EVERY week I hear ATC trying to call a lost-com-flight on guard in vain. Why? Most probably because the crew turned down or stopped monitoring 121.5 because of the constant useless chatter on it which interferes with the primary task of monitoring the active ATC frequency. If ATC would use SELCAL on 121.5 they would have a much bigger chance of getting in contact with them, because most probably they still have 121.5 selected in VHF 2 without monitoring it! Using SELCAL on 121.5 would definitely help in many of those cases! I fly over central Europe almost every day, and believe me, constantly monitoring 121.5 has become practically impossible!!!
Two things will solve this issue.
1. Almost all comms in future will move to data link and radio will be used a lot less. Aircraft will be following a deconflicted trajectory and the 'vectoring' given at the moment will be unnecessary. As radios will be VOIP there is no need to 'check in' as the system will tell both pilot and controller if the voice connection is there.
2. Multi-lateration on 121.5 easy to do - it is already available for some variants of data link, 243.0 and ADS-B. If you start using the frequency your position is immediately identified and associated with the labeled display giving your callsign. It would be sensible for the emergency frequency to be able to triangulate on aircraft in emergency, and of course as a byproduct identify the source of the animal noises.