RT control
 

To all my fellow professionals. RT is getting busier by the day, but there seems to be less concept of listening out, or patience. Remember aircraft maybe joining the frequency climbing, or hidden behind terrain so may not hear all calls on the frequency so make calls straight away, then there are those that just transfer frequency and start making there call straight away. RT discipline please.
Please Pilots stop trying to be ATC, STOP saying "Blocked" and when on 121.5 STOP saying "you're on guard"

Disagree with this bit. If there's any confusion or blocking of the frequency, as an ATCO myself, I'd like to know about it.

You give no context, you give no reason, you give no example - try doing a 6 sector day in NE when your already late off chocks and there is a 20 min slot delay and your already trying to think of ways to make up time..... we're only human!

Continue saying "Blocked" but wait a second or so, to listen if there isn't a valid reply by the party concerned. You may have received the message as completely garbled, but the parties concerned in the exchange may have been much closer to each other than the 'interrupter'. So your perception of hearing things getting blocked, may not be the case for everybody. And transmitting immediately "Blocked" may itself partially interrupt a valid reply and this annoys me as much as the OP. The art of transmitting "Blocked" :)
Never understood tough, why systems like Contran weren't made mandatory, for ex. in combination with the 8.33 decision.
Continue saying "you're on guard", but... only if you are sure you are on top of things and within range of the ground station. Unless it's a "wheelchair Sierra and Romeo" message or a "This is the captain speaking" announcement, be careful not to mess up an exceptional, but real use of 121.5. But stop using guard for unprofessional, infantile behaviour or the imitation of primates :ugh:

121.5
 

Remember in the UK FIR, the use of 121.5 for training fixes is encouraged (subject to real emergencies occurring at the time), this is of great benefit to pilots and the D&D Controllers yet still the "on guard" knee jerk reaction occurs.

Which would be all nice and dandy if those practice pans were done in a way that only those in the UK FIR could receive it. However, that is not the case, practice pans pollute the western half of europe at cruising altitude and are quite a nuisance. Usually it simply results in turning the volume down to nothing or switching to company instead, in a lost com case they can still reach us via ACARS after all.

Human, yes. But professional to be transferred to a new frequency and begin transmitting the second you switch over, no.

I've been in that position you describe many times, and never have I found waiting a couple seconds to make sure I'm not breaking into the middle of a conversation has resulted in my not getting what I want. Normally, such an attitude results in someone else being inconvenienced.

Case in point: I once saw an aircraft have to go around after being told to expect a late landing clearance. As they were about a mile back, some joker joins the frequency and tells his life story - including lots of "ums" and "ahs." This lasted so long that the guys had to go around because they didn't get the clearance in time.

A little bit of professionalism can go a long way.

The same goes the other way. To the London Controller who had a go at me a few weeks ago: I really dislike being bollocked for "not listening out" when a reasonable amount was actually given. If you are having a bad day, hand over to someone who is not.

To the Guard Police. How do you clowns do it? Your transmit selectors have to be permanently selected to 121.5. How about just counting to ten before transmitting and also please do us the courtesy of giving your callsign.

Lastly to Simbad, if you are working the sectors over the Alps, how about having transmitters located in positions where they actually worked?

PM

Empathy, manners and common sense should do the job, be it the ATC or Pilots.