RYR738_driver
Don't worry good buddy....it's a lot more common than you may think, certainly on my sectors. Number 1....keep everything out of your way.
Obviously we call you several times....contact last unit or sector to see if you've flipped back.....ask them to call you.....ask another aircraft to relay...ask D&D to try 121.5.....ask company aircraft to try company freq....use SELCAL if you have it....send an ACARS....use the phone [not joking]. Loads of options.
Sometimes an aircraft may be receiving an Oceanic clearance on another box, and may have muted or deselected box1.....we can contact Shanwick to check.
Common sense [not in the book] depending on your destination...wait until you reach TOD....99% call us then. We watch for a 7600 continuously...as well as a range of other measures that will already have been put in place.
We do not ask for any aircraft to be intercepted.....that is not our job....but relevant information will have been passed to other parties.
If they do come.....it's bloody quick....their performance is awesome...in fact double awesome!!
Some reasons for poor/lost reception....occassionally the 6-number channel may be misheard or mis-input, communication may still be possible but with some difficulty/patchy....not infrequent on my sectors. We may have deselected one of the chain of transmitter/receivers to alleviate weather interference...thus reducing coverage.
During quiet hours we may be operating with several sectors joined together [or bandboxed as we say], you may check in on one frequency/channel which is optimised for that sector....but by the time you leave the combined sector group [7 in my case....covering 72000sq miles] you may not be tuned to the most optimum......especially if the latter part of your flight contains a descent profile. You may have been asked to re-contact the same controller on a different frequency/channel on the odd occassion..that may be why.
Rgds