What Frequency is Guard?

[Felix Lighter]

Heard today in the vicinity of Tennant Creek:

The chap I was with thought TJI is a QF737.... (but I dont know for sure)

Bris Ctr: "TJI we are experiencing communication difficulties, if you cannot contact us directly try Cathay 105 on Guard"

TJI: : "Roger we can try Cathay" - short pause - "Centre, err what frequency is Guard again?"



GO YOU GOOD THING!!! :ok:

Edited for dyslexia! (TJI not TIJ)

[Arm out the window]

Un-F'n-believable!

[Hugh Jarse]

I thought they all knew. They always seem to call Qantas Sydney on it...:} :} :}

Sorry guys, couldn't resist.:E

[ExcessData]

I could be wrong, but is TIJ not a Cessna 210?

[Cactus Jack]

TJI is indeed a 737-400. Unless the callsign was incorrect (and it was in fact TIJ...) then I will personally guarantee that the guy was joking.

[compressor stall]

is most certainly a C210.

It used to have one of those old ADF's in it with the rotary dials. Used to pick up the DN NDB on the ground at Jabiru!

And it's left fuel gauge used to read zero when it felt like it! Would work fine on the ground and for every engineering inspection!

but back to the thread...bwahahahaha! :}

But I did like the Singapore Airlines Skipper the other day contacting centre to ask for the Allblacks vs Springboks rugby results!

CS

[404 Titan]

Felix Lighter

Somehow I doubt very much that a QF crew didn’t know what frequency guard was. If it was a VFR guy buzzing around below A100 then maybe this story sounds more plausible to me.

[Woomera]

404 Titan my man, given that some of the tykes I see wandering through the terminal with four bars on, look about the same age as my son, it is possible. :uhoh:

My son can make a computer sing dixie, but still doesn't know how to change the tyre on his vehicle.:(

It doesn't mean that they aren't competent in their chosen profession, because they are frighteningly so, just that they come from a parallel universe. :p

[training wheels]

so what's the answer? is it 123.45?

.. newbie

[OpsNormal]

All these old hands about and still the question unanswered.... TW, no it isn't. Guard is "121.5" (the same frequency as the early boat epirbs and many aircraft ones).

123.45 is usually known locally as "the numbers", and despite what many might say it is actually listed in our Aussie AIP as a bona fide air to air frq for use to tx operational information in between to airbourne aircraft.

Regards,
Ops.

[The Bullwinkle]

But do you know why 121.5 is used????

Well I'm glad you asked.

Because Civil aviation use VHF and Military use UHF, any distress messages transmitted on VHF 121.5 can also be heard on the military distress frequency UHF 243.0 and vice versa.

[pullock]

I still love it that the military call frequencies below 300 MHz UHF.

UHF is above 300 MHz.

200 MHz remains highband VHF in the real world.

[mr hanky]

Pullock, perhaps having a radio covering a band of around 240-340 MHz, they don't care to call it a "composite high-band VHF/UHF radio". Maybe "UHF" is easier.

Or maybe they just reckon it's a trivial distinction that only boring radio pedants can be bothered with.;)

[ftrplt]

what about the HF distress frequency then??

[Pass-A-Frozo]

5696.. but I reckon you should just transmit your mayday on Radio Australia... more people would here it :E

[Loc-out]

'Guard' Yes another idiosyncrasy from Australia I suspect. Never heard of it outside of that country.

Why do they have to complicate things??? Keep it simple keep it safe, I say.

Why dont they just say the emergency frequency or 121.5 and leave it at that? Cut out the BS.

[Ex Douglas Driver]

What, are you joking?? :oh:

121.5 / 243.0 is known as "Guard" the world over!!

[Ref + 10]

CS,

Indonesia 72 something-or-other asked for the AFL Grand Final score before anyone else last month. Laughed my head off cause there were about 4 QF flights around and I had been trying different broadcast stations for about half an hour trying to find the answer.

[divingduck]

errrrr...gee loc-out....

I really think you should get out more!:rolleyes:

Given that your curent place of abode is the UAE, I should have thought that you would have heard our military cousins using it a lot...not to mention all the other aircraft flying thru the airspace.

I always thought that's where it got it's name from..the military, not the civvie Australians, but I could be wrong!

[pullock]

As far as my understanding of the term guard goes - and this is only from radios that I have worked with that have GUARD RECEIVERS in them (these radios are all incidentally military ones )

The guard channel is one that is programmed to a second (and independent) receiver within the radio which receives on the (chosen) guard frequency at all times regardless of the frequency in use by the operator. It may be described as a priority monitoring channel.

The guard receiver could therefore be used to monitor either a calling frequency or company frequency or distress frequency so that calls would never be missed.

I have only ever seen the distress frequencies programmed to guard receivers in civilian applications of these radios, and suspect that it is often the case in many military applications as well.

I therefore believe this to be the origin of the colloquialism "guard" when it is used to refer to distress frequencies.

"guard" is not used so much in GA to refer to the distress frequencies owing to its military origins, and the fact that many GA aircraft have higher priority frequencies to monitor with their limited equipment. Monitoring 121.5 is rare as a SOP in GA operations from what I have experienced.

Guard receiver technology was used in the first transistorised radios, and I haven’t seen it used in modern equipment. Much of this antiquainted equipment remains common in Australian military use today partly because of it's replaement expense, but also for the sake of cominality.

If my account of the origin of the term is correct then I hardly think it is fair to bag somebody out just because they asked a reasonable question because they haven’t had to use old fashioned military radios or haven’t flown with people who have!!

The term guard is a colloquialism just like calling a vacuum cleaner a hoover, a sailboard a windsurfer, a cable tie a panduit, a small aircraft a cessna........the list goes on. Having said that I am still to hear a better common name for it - perhaps we should call the ACC (acronym control committee) :yuk:

(edited for my p iss poor spelling - ironic that I am contemplating the origins of words yet can't spell for s hit !!)

[Pass-A-Frozo]

The C-130J is pretty new and still has a guarde reciever. You just select BOTH on the UHF / VHF radio and it monitors guard as well. It is still useful so I guess that's why the keep it with the new equipment.

[Pinky the pilot]

Always thought that the term 'Guard' was coined by the US Military but I could be mistaken.
And regarding monitoring 121.5; a company for whom I do some very occasional casual Pa 31 flying has it as SOP that this frequency is monitored whenever possible.


You only live twice. Once when
you're born. Once when
you've looked death in the face.

[Aussie Andy]

Yes its a standard US-MIL term, used widely elsewhere and certainly not just an Australian local term! I submit as evidence the following image which shows the front panel of a NATO-standard ARC-164 UHF transceiver:

http://www.aircav.com/cobra/cockpit/pilot/uhf.gif

As for the bloke that reckons 243MHz is not UHF: mate, get a life! See you've got your SI units, and you've got the real/practical world....

Andy :O

[pullock]

Aussie Andy

Your picture of the ARC 164 is my point in case - should be in a museum but still in use today.

My comment that UHF starts above 300 MHz is correct - it's what the entire radio industry uses and dsignate it to be world over - it's also what the regulators designate it as.

The military is a special case where they teach their people what they want them to know because it's easy, and therefore they designate 200MHz as UHF. It's not a case of me needing a life (or maybe it is :* ) - it's a case of understanding that your military training told you some inaccuracies at their own convenience.

Reference for frequency planning www.sma.gov.au

[HotDog]

VHF = 30 - 300MHz

UHF = 300MHz - 3GHz

SHF = 3GHz - 30GHz

EHF = 30GHz - 300GHz.

[Oz_in_oz]

Pullock

The ARC 164 was an example - the latest An/ARC 210s also have guard, and they definitely are not museum pieces.

You comment that regarding the reason for the military defining guard they way in a non sequiter, and who really cares?

[Captain Sand Dune]

Guard is recognisable by all the Yank Navy chatter on it!!:}

[18-Wheeler]

Yes, as mentioned above 'Guard' is an American term that has unfortunately crept into the Aussie aviation vocabulary, no doubt from the sheep that watch too many TV shows & movies.
I never use it, I'm Aussie and it's 121.5.

[Aussie Andy]

Well 've heard it called Guard here in Europe too... Jeez, let's not turn this into some sort of paranoic jingoistic "I'm a bl**dy Aussie mate - and I don't wanna use yank jargon, nah..." nonsense debate, for Chrisake! How utterly childish is that!?

I also understand, thanks guys, that the "official" division of frequency bands from regulatory and scientific viewpoints runs 30, 300, etc. (any fool - like me :O - that got his ham radio license in junior high school can tell you that!) - but guys, puhlease, relax: its a mere expedient that a service which just happens to span the boundaries of such artificial (as opposed to physical) demarcations would for sheer convenience and practicality go under one simple name. This makes life easier for practical operational reasons. UNIVERSALLY it is referred to as "UHF" to distinguish it from VHF in the US, Europe, Asia and - steady now, this is not an attack on our great nation - in Australia too.

GET A LIFE!!! :ugh: Find something worth worrying about!!!

Back to the original thread, what a larf! I reckon if they must have been pulling ATC's leg if it was the QF, and if not then maybe the guy was a bit overloaded, maybe on an IFR renewal or whatever? Hey ho!

Andy :ok:

[Jerricho]

"Operator........what's the number for 911?"

[HotDog]

It's 000 around here.

[pullock]

and it's not operator - it's consultant.

:}

[AirNoServicesAustralia]

I agree with the previous guys, UHF may be officially put as being above 300Mhz, but since the F15's and F16's blessing us with their presence at the moment don't have VHF, but only have the radio freq's in the 200's, it is much simpler to call the 100's VHF and the 200's UHF.

A serious question though, why is it that these state of the art aircraft flying in civil airspace all the time don't have VHF???? Its okay for us cos all our sectors have a designated UHF frequency, but poor old Muscat has to scratch around the military guys freqs. and come back to us half an hour later with a freq to put the guys onto.

[Ex Douglas Driver]

It may surprise some members of this forum that the Australian Civilian aviation scene is not the birthplace of the world's aviation knowledge. There is a lot more to global aviation than bug smashing around the outback of Australia. Get over it!!

121.5 / 243.0 is known as "guard" - but who cares if some VFR cessna pilot from the middle of nowhere wants to call it "emergency".

Previous, current and future Military aircraft radios, from many different national manufacturers, simultaneously monitor "guard" as well as the tuned frequency. This is not because they're antiquated or that nobody could be bothered modifying this feature out, it's because it allows you to "guard" a common frequency. Military aircraft fly and fight in formations, sometimes with up to 100 aircraft in the same piece of sky, and they won't all be on the same radio frequency.
Different modus operandi, hence different equipment.

US military aircraft may have only radios for use on a military frequency band, because, well they're military. Go flying around the US and have a look at firstly how many military airfields there are (all UHF primary), and how many civil ATC facilities are UHF equipped.
:cool:

[Arm out the window]

The term 'Guard' probably came from seppo pilots who, on encountering a life-threatening emergency, would invariably utter the movie cliche words 'Oh my Guard!'

[18-Wheeler]

Childish?
Not remotely.
My standards are written down in the operations manual, Jeppesson's, etc, that we use to fly around he world with.
I haven't flown in Aus much for a few years, but I certainly cannot remember 121.5 ever being called anything other than that in the AIP/ERS/whatever. I t may be different now and only if that's the case then I am wrong.
I have flown to around thirty countries around the world and the only place I can recall seeing 121.5 being referred to as 'guard' is the US. (Again I may be wrong about that though)
If other people's standards allow them to use slang for such things, then suffice to say they are non-standard and are causing potential for confusion.
The same goes for those who use the phrase 'charlie-charlie' when the only correct terminology is 'affirmative.'
Very slack.
If you're a GA pilot, it maY not that important to be as disciplined on the radio though, as you don't have to pass line checks, sim rides, CRM courses, etc.