PLOC (Prolonged Loss of Communication) incidents are an issue at our Company. We had a recent one in which guard was switched off for reasons mentioned below and which is at the centre of the the problem of which you speak. Our Chief Pilot requires us to monitor 121.500mhz and it just pisses some of us off to the back teeth
Diddley Dee. I just want you to understand the pressures we are under on the other side of the fence
We as Pilots are caught between a rock and a hard place.
On one hand we have useless Spanish controllers, for a good example, who will quite happily let us blast through FIR boundaries and out of Radio Range which ensues in a fighter interception. This could quite possibly be fatal to certain peoples career path if working for the wrong company as we feel we are. We don't have Selcal or Sat Comms if we do find ourselves in this situation. No second chances in other words.
On the other hand 121.500 has now become utterly unusable over Europe due to the constant volume of spurious traffic on it. A colleague recently wrote what appears below on a company website stating his frustration, which I agree with 100%.
The situation stinks. These morons blocking the frequencies having casual chats are now not only interfering with other Airlines monitoring guard, the secondary effect is that they are now inducing people to join them. I mean that too, it boils the blood listening to these morons such that it turns respectable Pilots into "Guard Police".
When is somebody going to crack down on this misuse and take ownership for stamping it out?
I read this FCI this morning and am feeling a bit lost about it.
These incidents are happening more and more and not just at XXXair. We have been instructed to monitor 121.500mhz which is, of course, best practice and something I have certainly been taught since before I went solo for the first time on my PPL course. The problem is that there is just never ending chatter on the frequency. Take a flight from somewhere in England to somewhere south of the Alps:
1. 2 Practice Pan calls in UK, which they are quite legally entitled to make in the UK. I had to have an ATC instruction repeated as they conflicted.
2. France. Multiple calls. Should we rename it "121.500mhz- The Air France alternate company Freq" ? Plenty of "Bonjour Francois, ca va?" "Bien Merci, 123.450"
3. Germany. A very persistent and thorough ground controller at a regional airport, making multiple checks on all freqs: " Ya! Dis is xxxx ground, VHF ground test, hhhowwwwt"
4. Switzerland. "Hi Moritz/Franz/Hanz, Jim/Bob/jack here, are you on gaurd? "Yeah, go ahead" "Hi, just wondering if you were working today?" "Yeah just 4 sectors, blah blah blah" I kid you not!
5. Italy. More of the same as in No.4. Chat, Chat, Chat.
6. Generally.ELT/Distress Beacons being tested all day everyday. On, off, on, off, on, off. What ever happened to testing at the top of the hour? Spanish Pilots same thing as French Pilots as per point 2. Call your mates on 121.500mhz have a quick chat, then when you get shouted at, transfer over to 123.450mhz. The brigade of morons calling Operations. "Frankfurt Operations, Delta 3411" 2/3 calls in response "YOU ARE ON GAURD!!" Oblivious, Deltaman carries on "Yeah, uhmmm, off Block time 22, Fuel...."
All this set against a backdrop of possibly the most congested frequencies in the World. So what happens? We just can't put up with the noise and hassle and guard gets deselected. Then people get a little tired and inattentive and they get a fighter escort after 38 mins out of communication. I can see how it happens.
So, 121.500mhz is not a solid option. Marking the FIR borders on the PLOG. It seems to work and I have caught a few Spanish controllers trying to let me enter someone else's FIR without a handover. The problem is that sometime their are multiple FIR boundaries located within a few minutes of each other. Maastricht and Switzerland are examples. Added to the this you can receive a handover up to 100 miles before a border so you still can be confused as to whether you are with the right sector.
Solutions? HF Selcal would seem like an ideal solution. A chime and a flashing light if it all goes wrong. Very expensive though, it would cost many millions of Euro to fit to the fleet. It would also be very handy to contact the company instead of having to radio ahead to a base when you are overhead in the cruise.
Any thoughts?