Whilst we are asking Scottish Control questions, is it in your MATS Part 2 to repeat the full squawk when instructing people to ident?
Good question. Answer - yes it is. The appropriate bit in the MATS 2 is as follows:
Before providing a radar service using Scottish Systems Radars, aircraft must be identified as required
by MATS Part 1. Additionally, when SSR is used the Mode 3/A code must be validated and the Mode C
height read-out verified. If code/callsign conversion is in use, the correct correlation of the code to
the callsign must also be confirmed.
Traffic, whose radar target symbol indicates that callsign data is held in the Code/Callsign Distribution
System (CCDS), entering Scottish radar cover from a London ACC or Manchester ACC sector (excluding
Pennine Radar) and wearing a recognisable validated code, is identified. The code and callsign are
correlated, provided that the callsign and SSR code printed on the flight progress strip have not been
hand amended.
All well and good - a/c departing any airfield or entering Scottish airspce from somewhere other than LACC/Manchester need to be identified. Then:
The following procedure allows identification, validation and confirmation of code/callsign correlation
to be completed simultaneously when using LM Skyline processed displays:
On first contact transmit: ’Callsign; Squawk NNNN and Ident’ (where NNNN is the 4 figure code shown
on the radar FPS bearing the associated callsign).
I personally think it is a throwback to the old days of manual data handling and a simple 'Squark ident' would suffice but there you go. Interestingly when aircraft are coming off the an ocean track wearing a 2000 squark, I simply give them the new squark and identify them by observing the code change (and not bother with the ident). I'll probably get a bollocking from my LCE now I've admited it but it seems to satisfy all the requirements for identification, validation and confirmation of the code/callsign correlation.