Using all six digits for frequencies.

[Wonkavater]

Just interested to hear opinion on the change. From an approach and tower controllers point of view, it's a bit of a pain, but I'd like to know if it's gonna make pilot's and area controllers jobs easier.

[DFC]

Good idea - gets rid of the is it a frequency or is it a channel. Has been on the cards for ages and don't know why the UK was not prepared for it.

Regards,

DFC

[PPRuNe Radar]

The UK CAA will bring it in on 1st May 2006. They need the extra time for 'training', etc, they state :confused:



ATSIN 78 (http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?categoryid=33&pagetype=65&applicationid=11&mode=detail&id=1963)

[threemiles]

Contrary to my first impression I now think that the extra "training" time is well invested. Here, where the rule was invented 3 weeks ago, it a bit like a mess. There are controllers who adhere to the new rule and others don't. Ratio I'd say is 25% to 75%. This creates new room for misunderstandings. It needs a 100% cutover date.

[javelin]

Well you'll never get the Colonials to do it so there had better be some leeway :ok:

[Pierre Argh]

As a controller who works both civil and military traffic on UHF and VHF the first digit is more important than the last, i.e. not all the frequencies I used begin with a 1 (This is, I know an "unofficial" shortcut some pilots adopt to sound "punchy")

I can't see the benefit of adding the last digit... Does it not make sense? If it ends in 5 or 0 that's it... if it ends in 2 or 7 take it as read there's a 5 afterwards. (I know it's not necessarily pilots who have introduced this change, but thought you had to have at least basic intelligence to fly?)

[chevvron]

Pierre:
One of the reasons it was decided to comply with ICAO on this subject was the spate of RTF fails with aircraft transitting through some European countries, causing fighters to be scrambled. There is apparently some evidence that, as these aircraft had come from an 8.33 khz environment prior to RTF fail, the crew may have omitted to switch the radio from 8.33 mode to 25kz mode, thus the last '5' wasn't selected.
The fact that the UK notified just one 8.33khz freq makes it an '8.33 environment', thus compliance with the ICAO directive is required; incredibly the USA don't use 8.33 khz so they don't need to comply!!

[Carbide Finger]

Just wait until March 16th next year. Then there will be a couple more.

[Max Angle]

I could never see why it wasn't done from day one instead if the stupid "channel" designation. Much better to tell the pilot the frequency he will see on the radio when he tunes it. At the moment when we get 118.82, we see 118.825 so why not say it. The real shame is that the ICAO didn't grasp the nettle and change to channel numbers instead of frequencies but too late for that now.