If I'm inbound to an airfield and there's someone in the circuit but no-one manning the ground station, I EXPECT the other pilot to pass me any relevant information he might have. To remain mute is just plain BAD airmanship.

On the other hand. If I'm manning the tower and an inbound pilot decides to cut me out of the loop, I'll be just a little miffed.

As for an A/g operator not being able to issue instructions: Sometimes you have to in order to avert an accident. There just isn't time to make a polite suggestion. Stuff the rules.

[QUOTE][QUOTE]As for an A/g operator not being able to issue instructions: Sometimes you have to in order to avert an accident. There just isn't time to make a polite suggestion. Stuff the rules.
/QUOTE]

Correct...Operators may issue "Instructions" in an emergency. Already in the rules!

You are being ripped off. That's a future fee as proposed by Ofcom - some years in the future. you should not be paying more than £100 at present.
See: http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/Srg_1417FFenabled.pdf

Couple of years ago they asked me to do an evening lecture on correct use of radio. So I boned up on the distinctions between "Radio Littleham", being a humble base station with no claims whatsoever to authorise anything, and the other sorts, called "Control" which one can think of as a tower if you like.

The humble base station may pass information. But never never use the phrase "at your discretion"! Or the magic word "cleared" for anything!

So the aircraft nearby calles "Littleham Ground, this is Golf Whiskey Hotel
Alpha Tango, abeam the Brewery, inbound to you."

And Littleham Ground can say "Alpha Tango, Runway 24 in use, eight gliders in the circuit....cables in use for launching" and pray that Alpha Tango has enough nous to know what to do about all that!

Actually most of the time nobody is paying attention at Littleham anyhow, the only people anywhere near the radio are a couple of clueless visitors and the airfield dog....

Why on earth do we not have the simple Unicom system like in the US?
"Littleham Traffic, this is Cessna November 24885, down wind for 24"
And then anybody else nearby responds, giving their positions and intentions. What could be simpler and safer than that?

That very system, albeit under a slightly different name, has existed in UK for about six or seven years.

(From Flyer Portal)

So - 5 pages in and the OP is AWOL. I sent him/her a very friendly PM (cos I'm near Seething and pop in and out for fuel, etc) alerting him to some vagaries mentioned in a plethora of posts above.

Where is he? Is he hiding under a bridge somewhere?

Stik

Mary

I see that you are in the UK, but your post seems very confused, referring as you do to "Radio Littleham" ("Littleham Radio"?) and then giving an example with the callsign "Littleham Ground" which is an ATC callsign. And you were giving a lecture on the "correct use of radio"!


The sooner the the CAA gets its act together in addressing the AGCS issue, the better, preferably either getting rid of A/G stations and making them either Safetycom or obliging them to upgrade to FIS.

2 s

Or by leaving them alone and allowing pilots to continue to make use of them, as they have done quite safely in the past?

5 pages later, and it must now be obvious that yes you can talk to another aircraft, you just need to press the PTT button and open your mouth.

If the question is should you talk to another aircraft? Can't we all get used to exercising common sense? I don't see why there needs to be absolute regulation of everything. If it works, use it.

If the op had a bit more experience he would've known he could just as easily have found out where the traffic was from the a/g operator as he could asking directly. The fact is he didn't have an accident and the a/g operator shouldn't have felt the need to have a go at him.

Won't getting rid of A/G stations and making them adopt Safetycom saturate the frequency?

Below 2000' in the vecinity of my base I hear aircraft talking to a station nearly 100nm away.

Patowalker, spot on. One of the main drawbacks of SafetyCom is that it is one frequency that is potentially used at perhaps hundreds of locations in the UK. Agreed that those locations should by definition be low-traffic, but on a good weekend with several farmstrip fly-ins, SafetyCom can be nigh on useless especially when users do not both start and end the call with the location.

And as far as getting rid of A/G frequencies is concerned, Ofcom seem to be aiming for that anyway with their totally unjustified daylight-robbery fees. :mad: