. Kaz, I operate 122.4, you'll know how busy it is in the YSHT, YMNG area. You'd be surprised at how many times VFR aircraft fly through dropzones neither on the area or CTAF frequency. Rarely does a call from Centre to a VFR get answered. Stuffed if I know what they're listening to? Airspace violations are a regular occurence, once again, with ozrunways & Avplan how does this happen?
Frequencies are a dog's breakfast now...
I know you are on 122.4, Jack and I greatly appreciate your presence.
I've heard you and Melbourne Radar castigating infringements and rightly so, but I don't really know why they happen other than those pilots are either awfully slack or incredibly selfish or both.
I tend to avoid Mangalore these days:-) At Shepparton we try to look after one another and the two flying schools are very professional. I got back from Alice via Renmark and Swan Hill today and the AWIS wasn't working. When I gave my inbound call, Alan Cole (Gawne's CFI) kindly came on the radio to welcome me and to give me the wind...my Auster has max dem XW of just 9 knots.
It would be nice if everyone cared like that and would no doubt make your workload a tad easier, too.
It seems to me that all these little airfields people are mentioning are not CTAFs at all. Wignells at Euroa is an example. It's a private strip south of the Highway marked Euroa on the WAC. The old gliding strip north of the Highway is marked Euroa Soaring Centre on the same chart. But on the VNC, Wignells isn't shown at all and the ESC strip becomes Euroa. Neither is listed in ERSA. I haven't seen or heard anything flying out of either of them for ages. When the charts are confused I guess it's not unreasonable to expect confusion amongst the players, too.
I listen to you there because I know you will tell me if something is likely to cause me grief as it follows the iron compass down to Seymour or up to Benalla...no-one ever comes on 126.7 there and only a very few remember to call Locksley AND Mangalore.
Kaz