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!!!
To be fair, SELCAL could be used on the transmit from the aircraft. That would at least identify the source of any transmission and hopefully prevent the abuse of the frequency.