Originally Posted by SparkyBoy
I was listening in online to some US ATC conversations (Seattle I think) and I'm surprised they get any traffic moved at all. The ATCR was telling the pilot about a great little cafe at the airport and told him his favourite item on the menu.
It's pretty rare to hear this kind of thing in the US, in my experience anyway. If things are very quiet then you might get a sentence or two. Other pilots following the right procedure (more or less) but v e r y s l ow l y are a bigger problem. If you're on a busy freq like Norcal around SFO & SJC or for that matter Palo Alto tower on the weekend, there is no time for anything extraneous.
n5296s