Ground Stations

[Towering Q]

Greetings to all you ATC types out there.

I am a humble bush pilot from down under and have a question.

I occasionally here Melbourne Centre say to an aircraft, "..in with a ground station, go again."

What is a ground station? My first thought was another controller on some kind of intercom. Am I close?:confused:

[Scott Voigt]

Never heard of that from this side of the world...

regards

[chiglet]

Probly"Jumping a Jumbuck" [That's "Ozzie" for 'Dancing'] under a Kooliba Tree, in a Bilabong.:rolleyes: And the tx stuck:D
we aim to please, it keeps the cleaners happy

[willadvise]

Towering Q you are 100% correct.

Since transition to TAAATS this has been a bigger problem. Under the old system we had the ability to control the volume of the air/ground and ground/ground seperately. It was standard practise to set one higher than the other (depending on controller preference but most had air/ground higher than ground/ground) so you would hear either your ground/ground or air/ground clearly clearly when two transmissions were coming in. Under TAAAAAATS we have lost this ability and they are both set at the same level and often both end up being garbled resulting in have to "say again" to the aircraft and to the other controller.

[Towering Q]

Willadvise, thanks for that informative response. It's always handy to get some insight into what goes on down there in Melbourne. (I don't venture into the world of Brisbane very often.)

I've started talking to you chaps, (and chapettes) a lot more now that I've got the Instrument Rating. Still prefer to go VFR when heading into remote areas and the weather is 8/8 severe clear.

Does it annoy you when these Gumbys call up asking for the QNH when they have just left an aerodrome with a listed elevation?:rolleyes:

[willadvise]

For me personally it doesn't annoy me very much unless I am very busy with IFR aircraft or they are within range of a VHF flightwatch frequency or AERIS. But it is a part of ASA's push to push the VFRs (non paying customers) out of the system. Hence the first NAS changes. My understanding is that most "Gumbys" call up for the QNH just to get their voice on the tape or to make sure that their radio is working and they are on the correct frequency. The NAS changes have done nothing (we are still very early on adimittedly) to reduce the number of transmissions. Instead of getting an AQNH request we are now getting more requests for radio checks and/or for METARs which take us longer to find and transmit.
For an old fashioned person like me I think the VFRs are an important part of Australian aviation and the government should be paying for the provision of a safe, government run, air traffic control system for everybody rather than a comercially focused dot.com.

[Towering Q]

Hopefully getting rid of the CASA board is a step in the right direction.

[Spodman]

Gee Willadvise, you are lucky. Our intercoms are set much louder than our radios... Really crap part of the design that there four different volume controls that achieve nothing useful, and no adjustment for the parameter you really need.

Bring back the Flight Service PFS-2 console audio please!