For those reasons I fail to understand why gliders is this area cant do as I have proposed? It is a small thing one is asking - it might not do any good but unless there is persuasive grounds for not doing so it has to be worth a try - and you have not yet persuaded me on this point.
Fuji Abound
I will try to explain.
When I fly the south downs ridge I listen out on the glider chat frequency to monitor how much glider traffic is around ( often 40 + gliders) and form a mental picture of where they are. There is a lot of chat about which sections of the ridge are working well and more importantly, which bits are not.This info is useful.
If I were to call for an air traffic service, I have the choice of 3 radar services or calling Goodwood and Shoreham for FIS. I guess I would be expected to call each as I work my way from west to east then the same on the return leg. Say I start at Butser hill, I guess I would be expected to talk to Solent as they have radar and traffic and would like to know something about my movements. Then 5 min later call Good wood as they might have traffic in the area. Then I guess a LARS unit, then before passing through the extended c/l I should be talking to Shoreham and so on.
All in all my head would be in the cockpit to dial up frequency changes 7 times in each direction. That is a lot of time heads down when the traffic I need to avoid is in the same narrow band of lift that I am running and at similar heights on a reciprocal track with both doing 80 to 120 kts. I would be increasing my risk of a head on collision greatly. None of these controllers can realistically give me any traffic information that would be of any use to me what so ever.If I am getting a radar service the controller would be warning me of traffic head on every minute ( 40 gliders on a 40nm ridge), and with it advice to turn right 45 deg if traffic not sighted. Well if I turn behind the ridge I will be in sink and landing out! If I turn left I will fly out of the lift and land out. Most controllers tend to blurt out a bunch of useless info about regional pressure settings etc when that is not only of no use, it is the wrong setting for avoiding the base of CAS. Then when I do call I get asked a bunch of irrelevant questions like where did you take off from, where re you going to land, what type of glider are you flying, how many souls on board etc etc This serves only as an unwelcome distraction and an annoyance. All that they need to know is that this leg is from Petersfield to Eastbourne operating between surface and base of CAS. Given that there are 40 sailplanes between surface and base of CAS what will the 5 ATC agencies relay to you? look out, lots of gliders,various heights. Think how the controllers would feel if 40 gliders were to do the same, that would be one glider calling twice each every minute. They would not be able to give the usual service to existing customers.
Now if I am down at ridge top there is unlikely to be any non glider traffic, also I am unlikely to show on radar and might not be able to receive VHF
In short by using the radio to call ATC neither I nor the others on frequency gain anything and the risk of collision actually increases due to the distraction and heads down time.
If you read through back issues of AIRPROX reports you will be amazed how often an airprox occurs between 2 aeroplanes that are in the same bit of sky talking to different controllers, many of which would have been avoided if the pilots had been looking out
Really these controllers cannot save you and the sooner pilots let go of this bizarre belief that talking to some one on a radio will somehow protect them the better. Look out the window, stop distracting your self with radios.