Ok guys I am here!!..
Scottish info on 119.875 we use 3 tx/rx sites...one at Windy head on the Moray coast NW of Aberdeen, another on Craigowl Hill north of Dundee and the third on Lowther Hill NE of Dumfries......all these sites use a slight offset...unable to tell you what but will check with my tels guys tommorrow and report back....one thing though recently we had new equipment installed and I now find where as before we would get good 2way with aircraft in certain positions and height I find now this is not always the case and I believe this freq offset has something to do with that! especially if you are equi distance between 2 TX/RX site's i.e. St Abbs area. Also dont forget VHF radio is line of sight...theoretical range is 120nm at 12000ft but as most of you guys and gals
operate at and below 3000ft the range can be very limited. If you want to test your radio out with me, send me a PM and i will give you the sector phone number so maybe we could do some tests one day. The noise you sometimes hear and assume is the a/c ignition could be caused by these offset frequencies (hetradyting!! unsure if that is the correct word as I am no radio expert)
As for auto triangulation no not possible on 119.975...Scottish D and D do have the facility on 121.5 but coverage is poor below 3000ft over the Scottish Highlands. The best thing in an emergency or Pan situation is if talking to me already (and yes please do I really dont bite!!
) would be to advise me soonest, i will then ask you to squak 7700 assuming you have a transponder then every radar head that see's you will alarm SOS and at the very least help will soon be forthcoming with the aid of my military colleague's at Scottish D and D even though you are working me on 119.875.
Another problem certain pilots have told me is certain GPS sets in company with certain VHF radio's seem to interfere with the 119.875 freq in the aircraft....in a few cases the operators would rather use the GPS so therefore dont bother talking to Scottish..
OK well I hope I have cleared up a little of the mystique of my job but the best way for sure is one day come over and say hello ...