As airline pilots, we're expected to listen out on 121,5 continuously, but frankly, over Europe that has become counterproductive.
There’s so much talking going on on that frequency, wrong dispatch calls, silly jokes, etc, that listening out on 121,5 makes crews miss calls more often than the other way around! When it’s really busy on the ATC frequency you’re using, monitoring 121,5 becomes very impractical.
So, why doesn’t atc use selcal to get our attention on 121,5 when there’s a loss of communication with a flight? The selcal-code is in the flightplan info! We just have to leave 121,5 tuned on VHF2 box, without the need to listen to all the bull****, elt’s and distortion on the frequency.
Don’t tell me the atc center doesn’t have the equipment! Any android smartphone or Iphone can do it with an app like
this one! It works very well!