Originally Posted by PaulisHome
I also like the 'No service required' approach. I don't generally think a basic service is much use - controllers start trying to relay traffic information, but it's too general to be useful. Being told about a an aircraft five miles away doesn't help me very much - I'm more interested in the ones within a few hundred metres. All it says is keep a good lookout, which I'm doing anyway.
Just in case you weren't aware, the above is all you should expect from a BS where traffic information is concerned. You often get more because of Duty of Care, but TI is not required to be anything more than generic on a BS.
Traffic information is simpler from an ATCO point of view when you're working aircraft going in straight(ish) lines from one place to another. When multiple aircraft start to remain in one area, it gets a bit tricky. For a start, they can become a blob on the radar screen and it gets harder to tell which is which. If you're orbiting and the radar refresh is every 6 seconds, then there's the problem that any clock code issued will probably be out of date. Then there's the issue of repeated conflicts with the same aircraft. How many times should an ATCO issue the same piece of traffic before you and they get fed up?
That's not a complaint, just a bit of an insight to the other side.