Tower Frequency DOC
Good evening!
Yesterday at IOM, I overheard (while waiting for some SLF to arrive) an interesting conversation on IOM tower frequency. There was a barely readable (to us) transmission from a Clifton (CLF) callsign, to which the tower responded with:
"Clifton 10, how do you read?"
A further, unreadable transmission from the CLF aircraft. Then, again, TWR responded with:
"Clifton 10, how do you read?"
Nothing this time from the CLF. Then, a BEE aircraft helpfully responded with something along these lines:
"TWR this is BEExxx, CLF10 has acknowldged your transmission, he's trying to contact Kemble tower."
TWR: (rather grumpily) "Yes, I know. I'm just trying to get a point across......he should know what the DOC of a tower frequency is."
OK, so a couple of questions-
What's the DOC of a tower frequency? Does it vary from field to field? And where's it written down? I certainly don't remember it being mentioned in any of my training, but that doesn't mean it wasn't!
Also, is that the kind of thing you ATCers imagine that we know? My captain didn't either...
Cheerio!
CC