There was this other thing in the PPL syllabus which I have almost forgotten together with this speechless code thing. If you lose radio contact and are lost, you need to fly a triangle to the right if you can still receive, and to the left if you cannot receive. Supposedly ATC will notice this and will vector another aircraft to intercept you. Yeah right. I'd rather take my chances with 7600 and an uncontrolled field than wasting my valuable fuel in flying triangles for half an hour, hopefully followed by an impromptu, unbriefed and unrehearsed formation flight taking me to an unknown destination.
Truth is, I dearly hope that in extraordinary situations like this, ATC will gently remind me of the correct procedure. One click = yes, two clicks = no, or the other way around. (And if not, I'll just click away until ATC gets fed up with me and reminds me rather non-gently of the correct procedure.)
Have to admit the first thing the pilot should have done in the phonecall is thank you. But I somehow assumed he already did that over the radio , and it took all his guts to phone you up afterwards, and as an inexperienced and probably very stressed amateur decided to give you, a very experienced professional, a bit of very sound advice. So give him a bit of slack...
