ChristianJ - Do not preach to me please. The whole lost pilot system in the UK is no longer acceptable, Practice Pans clutter and corrupt 121.5, end of.
Alternatively do you propose changing 121.5 globally to accommodate the UKs procedures?????
We need a "clean freq" asap
get your facts straight before you sound off dogma.
D&D recently did a survey of all transmissions on 121.5, in order to see if the very complaint that you made above was valid.
Guess what, they found that the majority (up in the 70-80-90 odd % ISTR) of calls on 121.5 were us lot up at FL300+, not the much maligned uk ppl with practice pans (which is usually included as part of the PPL course) and genuine emergencies.
So wind yer neck back in mate, and save your spleen venting for the yanks saying "you're on guard" every 5 seconds.
D&D, 121.5 and practice pans are all very much part of the current campaign to help reduce airspace incursions in the UK - would you rather that 121.5 was used or would you rather have lost PPL's wandering accross 09L approach?
It is us lot that need educating, not the UK GA community (of which I am also part).