Help or hinderance

[aligee]

Looking for some advice from a controllers perspective. Flying a Small aircraft with dual radio frequency monitoring and mode s transponder and paw and using skydemon.

flight one. Squawking local major airport code and listening to radar while going round the zone.and monitoring the area controller. Airport radar controller had very kindly advised me of traffic at one point without me requesting a service and later on had apparently asked me for an update when I had lost contact with him and did not hear his call Later I heard area controller advise of an unknown aircraft whom they had been advised by the airport radar controller was possibly me. I did freecall the area controller and update him as to my identity.and made him aware I was listening out and aware of traffic.

flight 2. Listening out to the area unit squawking conspicuity and monitoring local airport but did not request basic. Heard conflicting traffic talking to area and being advised of opposite traffic (me) not talking to him. I had the traffic on pilot aware and was happy with the separation but called area controller to advise I was the unknown traffic and was aware of the closing aircraft and had them on pilotaware.

in both cases atc thanked me for the update and later I reflected on how I could have improved my perfomence for the benefit of controllers and myself and would appreciate any comments or critiscism from the guys in the know.eg should I have just requested basic from the start of both flights or was I right to just jump in and let them know I was their unknown traffic or should I have continued monitoring and say nothing.

[chevvron]

You talk about 'airport radar unt' and 'area controller'; do you mean you were using a conspicuity code but not listening to the notified approach radar frequency?
'Area controller's' as you call them do not operate using conspicuity codes.

[ShyTorque]

Aligee, you obviously used the “Listening squawk” system as advertised. No problem at all with that. A basic service from the airport would have given you the airfield QNH but you could obtain that by listening out. There’s obviously no guarantee of anything more, because ATC has no responsibility to provide it. It’s the pilots choice whether to ask for a service or not when flying outside controlled airspace. A controller may or may not pass advice on seeing a “listening squawk”, that’s his/her choice and will be subject to workload. It’s of mutual benefit to speak up as you did, so you did the correct thing.

[aligee]

Chevron.thanks for the reply. I was squawking 7000 and monitoring both the local approach and the information service. I was just unsure if by giving the information service an update as to me being their announced unknown traffic in a call to an opposite aircraft,whilst I was not in receipt of a service ,was a help or adding to their workload.
shytorque has answered that for me. Appreciate the input gentlemen

[The Fat Controller]

I did a lot of West Coast (127.275) in my years at Scottish Centre and I found that a lot of local pilots listened but did not want or need FIS.

With the advent of Mode S, I could click a mouse and see their callsign and on several occasions I called them to see if they were listening as knowing their intentions made my life so much easier regarding provision of Traffic or Deconfliction service to other traffic, once you small guys are "known traffic" life became so much easier.

As for the Class E Airways and unknown traffic, I'll leave that to those still in the job.

You certainly did the correct thing in calling, it made everyone's life easier, keep your transponder on and if you have altitude encoding, use it.

[aligee]

Thanks the fat controller.very helpful post. Scottish and the local major airports controllers are so helpful to us tiddlers and always go the extra mile.

[mike current]

Thanks the fat controller.very helpful post. Scottish and the local major airports controllers are so helpful to us tiddlers and always go the extra mile.

To be fair, in the days of COVID aviation it gives us something to do :(