Radiotelephony in shambles in Europe?

[Flying Guy]

"Good Morning, Delhi control."

Derekl,

You said,

"The seemingly redundant words at the beginning of a radio transmission ("Good morning", "Hello, director" and so on) are very important in one respect: it's well understood that the human ear takes a syllable or two of speech to attune or synchronize to a particular voice. It is sensible not to impart vital information in the first one or two words of a message."

Your point about the one or two words to "tune your ear" is fine and I don't object. But we usually start with the name of the sector we are talking to such as "Lumpur Control" or "Chennai control." That, I believe, serves the purpose you mention without putting the "good morning / good afternoon" greeting in front of it, wasting frequency time in a busy environment. Hey, I don't intend to beat this dead horse to death and I admit, it is a personal pet peeve. But I do believe it is an example of using too much unnecessary verbiage as I mentioned in my first post.

No problem with me though IF THE FREQUENCY IS NOT BUSY to start with a friendly "GOOD MORNING," I suppose. You won't hear me do it though. (Used to earlier in my career.) I pride myself these days on keeping my transmissions as brief as possible while imparting the NECESSARY information.

To reinforce my point, rarely do you hear pilots broadcasting on HF start with "Good morning." Those limited frequencies are way too busy for friendly radio calls full of superfluous information. Seems to me we ought to start treating VHF communications the same way.

Guess I am just getting grumpy in my old age.