In the mid 80's I was based at Odiham. Lived in quarters 7 miles away. We had a cascade system that seemed to work, get a call, call the guy next on your list and drive into work. Mrs wasaloadie would then get another call informing her that there was a callout 10 mins after I had left, then she would get a knock on the door 10 mins later telling her there was a callout, she would get this even when I was away on task etc. Following complaints we were given cards to stick in our windows to signify we were on leave or away on task etc, so that the callout person did not disturb you (in theory), but this was abused as we used to leave the card in the window permanently.
It never failed to amaze me how when the call out occurred how most of the guys from remote quarters or living out, managed to arrive at work before the guys on the station patch or from the messes did even after parking our cars on the taceval car par and walking in.
Some of us hated taking pistols on ex with us, preferring to take our SLR's. The 9mm was just another piece of metal to carry around and of course there was a chance of losing one. On one of the exercises, one of the Sqn execs decided he would check who had their pistols on them. When he realised that none of us had, he decreed that if we were caught without them again, he would ensure extra duties would be handed out. Therefore, most of us went down a local store and bought replicas, these fired 8mm blanks which in those days were freely available for a few quid (certainly cheaper than the fine for losing a real one). Everyone knew that whilst blank ammo was issue for the SLR's, none was issued for the pistol. Imagine the surprise on the enemy faces (para reg I think) when on one ex, they are confronted with the aircrew all firing their pistols (the replicas), we declared it a win when the enemy took cover or ran away thinking we were live armed.