Recognizing that there are national differences, and not wishing to be critical, I'm nonetheless struggling with the idea of a Mayday call for an uncomplicated comms failure. Hard to see the 'grave and imminent danger requiring immediate assistance'. If you have enough electrical power left to talk to ATC a simple plain language advisory call may be enough or, for a more serious conflation of events, a pan-pan call.
There are grey areas of course. I was particularly impressed with the threshold applied by a young charter pilot here in Oz when a deranged passenger tried to take over a light twin. His pan-pan came through with a certain edge (apparently he was being beaten around the head) but did the job. Still, I think I might have been pushed to a Mayday in those circumstances.
Another suggestion we are given is to listen to destination airfield navaid audio channels, if available. ATC transmissions can be impressed on the VOR or NDB audio channel, although in the one Class D comms failure I've had the home-field NDB was out of service, so I never got to try it out. By the way, the failure was due to the frequency selector knob on my ancient Narco comms unit shattering, and being unable to grip the shafts of the rotary switch. I pressed on with a standard arrival, and watched for the green light from the tower. No drama, but I recall being surprised at how feeble the lantern was - not sure exactly what I was expecting!
Last edited by tecman; 9th Jan 2015 at 13:16.