Certainly the obvious thing to do would be to ensure that all staff who use airfield RT have been thoroughly trained and standards are maintained. Then it's okay for all stations to be able to hear each other without running the risk of sub-standard RT discipline. Arranging the voice switch so a/c can only hear half the conversation, as it were, is crackers. It's like having a telephone with no earphone in the receiver. Can I speak yet ? Is it my turn ?
Has the other bloke gone quiet ? And so on...
To be fair to LBA, as I've alluded to in a previous post, high RT standards would appear to be a target, given that allowing anyone on the manouvering area who isn't an airport company employee is a relatively recent direction for LBA. Really. When I started there in 1996, crossing the runway or going on the taxiways meant arranging an escort from the Fire Service or occasionally, ATC. There was no Airside Operations or Safety Unit and no RT training for a/c engineers etc. Things have obviously moved on since then and with some necessity. But I still wish we had the full cross-couple thingummyjig.
