Sel Call

Being in the Airline industry,

I can confirm the Aviation operation of Selcall.

It's exactly like have in a telephone attached to the HF.

As everyone knows listening the all the static and Hash on HF is so enoying. On long trans oceanic flights, HF is the only means of contact to maintain reporting enroute (this is a requirement for all commercial operations). So like you said, when you first contact a new agency, you pass onto them you selcall alpha-numeric code. Then you only need to monitor the HF when ever you make a report or the selcall has gone off(which is like a phone ringing). Keeps you sane on those long dark nights ;)

G’day Dolfn,

I don’t want to hijack Allyn’s thread, but with your background in aviation I though you might find this yarn amusing [or otherwise]

My background is a professional radio operator, and many years ago in Singapore [back in the sixties] we had the habit of keeping a spare receiver [speaker turned on] tuned to the ICAO frequency of 8870Khz to help while away the boredom during quiet evening shifts.

One night there was a British Airways flight en route from Darwin to Singapore, and he announced himself to Singapore with his “Speedbird” callsign, gave his position, and requested permission to descend to a certain height as part of the pre-approach for his eventual descent into Singapore.

Singapore’s answer was to tell him that as he was currently in Indonesian air space that permission would have to come from Jakarta.

Duly noted the skipper of the BA flight called Jakarta with the same request.

Jakarta’s response was to ask his final destination – to which he was told “Singapore”

Jakarta then responded by telling him he had to get permission from Singapore.

Back to Singapore with the same request.

Confusion building – remember, this poor bugger is closing on Singapore at a fair speed while these blokes are arguing the toss.

End result – somebody used their initiative. Darwin stepped in [I think from memoryDarwin was FIR controller] gave the BA flight permission to descend, and then ordered both Singapore and Jakarta to contact him immediately via “other means” [obviously to slip them a few choice words]

One very relieved BA Captain thankful for the Aussie presence in the region.

:) :) :)

Enjoy the bush

DennisN

I agree that we should not Hijack this Question,

But I like the story thanks.

There are many little stories like this "over the air bands" from years past.

Some of which definitely bring a tear to the eye.

One that I recal vividly is about a United 747, which has just landed in Frankfurt. The Captain, who was a fairly senior chap paused briefly on the taxiway, just checking his Chart to make sure he knew exactly which way to go to the Gate. As quick as a flash, the German ground controller, got on the United Aicraft's case and asked, "United 622 haven't you been to Frankfurt Before?" The Captain, took offence to the contoller's tone, responded, "Yeah I was here in 1945, but I didn't stop".

There are many more!

Maybe see you out there sometime.

;)