new bloke and rightstuffer
Hi a couple of comments:
1) London Information on 124.6 is a Flight Information Service the same as any small airfield with the r/t callsign 'Information'. It is not staffed by air traffic controllers rather by a Flight Information Service Officer. This makes a big difference to the service on offer.
2) some of the comments regarding r/t standards are unfortunately true. We ATCOs, many of whom are active or lapsed PPLs, speak on the r/t all day every working day so we are used to it. We do understand that most PPLs don't and that their r/t won't be as fluent.
This said the better you sound then the more likely you are to get what you want. If I'm busy the last thing I want is someone who is incoherent or who witters their life story to me at the worst possible moment. If you're locally based we soon get to recognise voices and can often put names, faces and abilities to them too.
As an ATCO I would much prefer to know who the primary only or 7000 squawk is than to have to guess who you are, where you're going and how you plan to get there. This is especially true if your transponder doesn't have Mode C (altitude encoding) as many commercial a/c have TCAS which assumes the worst that anything without Mode C is at the same altitude and is therefore a threat even though you may be many hundreds or thousands of feet below. You may only get a brief acknowledgement of your call but the ATCO is probably a little happier as he now has a fuller picture of the traffic environment. For your part you are now getting a Flight Information and Alerting service.
On the subject of getting to know your local ATCOs why not enquire about visits to the tower as this builds up a rapport with ATC. If you're a member of a club why not organise a few of you to look round at the same time?
It would also be worthwhile enquiring of ATC whether they run an r/t course. I know some units do.
safe and happy flying