Air To Air Chat
 

I have had a rummage around the forum and can see some chatter (no pun intended!) on the air to air frequencies for chatting amongst touring groups but it all dates from some time ago - nothing recent.

Can somebody advise what (if any) air to air chat frequencies are still usable in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and The Netherlands.

I know its a touchy subject....

Unofficially it always used to be 123.45 but officially I didn't say that...

IIRC that was 'officially' NOTAMED out moons ago....

Nah, they couldn't officially notam it out cos it never officially existed.;)

AIC on use of 123.45 in the UK.

An interesting point here - I was delivering some refresher training on RT for my microlight club the other night (they are not regular users, so benefit from an occasional refresher!), and covering emergencies gave the standard "call the frequency currently in use", when I was asked about Unicom.

Presumably, Unicom 135.475, the microlight A/G frequency 129.825, or the "chat" frequency 123.45 are all about as useful as a chocolate teapot in an emergency - in most cases anyhow. These are presumably the exceptions where you should immediately switch to guard in an emergency?

Anybody got any thoughts on that?

G

Genghis the Engineer - any idea why 123.45 was not adopted as the unicom frequency here in the UK. Was it the CAA being obtuse or was there a valid reason?

Thanks

Because it's allocated elsewhere.

122.800 MHz (AFAIK also in Austria).

122.8 won't amuse stapleford much....

Best read this:

http://www.ead.eurocontrol.int/eadba...2010-06-17.pdf

Back in the 1980's, I flew from a field in Germany which had the allocated frequency 123.45.

Life could be very difficult at times - usually when we had to listen to the American baseball scores etc.

ShyTourque an interesting read like Duchess Driver I also believed 123.45 had been specifically closed to use for air to air communication. Looking at some old band allocation web sites it is actually shown as an “illegal air to air” frequency. This has been a significant communications gap for some time now. Good to see it is now open for use.

There is also a need for legal integration with ground based communications for air to ground chat and co-ordination. In the voluntary SAR world in the UK there is no air ground communications for aircraft supporting a ground based search. As far as I can see at the moment it is either this or the illegal use of a mobile phone or handheld intended for ground use.

... in remote and oceanic areas out of range of VHF ground stations.

That is not how I read it. The remote oceanic area bit seems to just relate to the spec for the equipment used. It does not say that 123.45 is only to be used in those areas. As usual the drafting is crap, and one wonders whether sometimes it is deliberately done that way just so that various possible interpretations may be put on it, to suit any particular circumstance or argument.

Well it means what it says. 123.450 MHz is not for the Le Touquet lunch club to prattle away to eachother, it is for 'operational information' purposes in remote / oceanic areas....

....apart from Spams yakking about their damned rounders scores and 'ride reports', of course...:uhoh:

Why would touring gaggles need to jibber-jabber to each other anyway? If you want to fly in formation, learn to do so properly.

I have never done formation flying, are you saying it is done in silence?

Pannie - my formation aerobatic team just uses std handsignals and knows the routine. I do expect them to "check in" on any frequency change - these are published RT freq's.

Hope this helps,

Stik

Isn't the best thing is to simply find a frequency that isn't going to interfere with any other within range :ok:

I've used 122.95 (is that an obselete Unicom frequency?) for discrete air2air r/t for over 10 years without a problem. Yet :E

Oshkosh Unicom, Vienna ATIS, San Francisco Unicom, Libby Army Airfield Ops (USA), Gulfstream Ops at Long Beach, Birr Airfield Ireland, , Great Lakes Flight Centre Canada - and in the UK both Bristow Helicopter Operations, and the Helicopter operations frequency for uncontrolled sites.

So, your chat may just tramp across Bristows trying to co-ordinate a search and rescue operation. Unlikely, but I doubt you'd enjoy explaining your rationale in court.

G

Apart from being illegal, how would you know what it was likely to interfere with? That is the reason why frequency planning and allocation exists, to to ensure that genuine users are free from the likelihood of being interfered with by ignorant pratts.