I have been told some of the Icoms with stand by monitoring don't actually have two receivers.
That's right Bas, it flips from one to the other and when the primary is receiving you don't hear the secondary. Rather than $1,500+ for a second radio, dual watch is the next best thing. Twin aerials are also an extra cost to consider plus the extra complexity of the wiring harness.
I find dual watch or dual radios the most useful when operating near adrop zone. I'll be on CTAF but then pick up discussions with Centre about aircraft near the drop zone (aka me) and them not knowing my intentions, thus delaying the drop aircraft until I've gone past or my intentions are known. It's great to be able to let centre know you are heading for the circuit versus flying through a drop zone.
It's also great for monitoring the chat channel. Yesterday I picked up a prolific pprune poster polishing up on his formation skills. Very professional bro
