Flight Safety- Monitor 122.775 vs Flight Following

[petrolero]

Why not tune them to 121.5 instead.

I used to turn them down when I left them on 122.8 or whatever. I found myself forgetting to turn them back up again.

In the practice areas around here you better self-announce on 122.75 or you'll need 121.5 before long.

 

[flyingron]

In this area the local approach control keeps tabs on the practice area. Everybody is on the approach control frequency.

 

[denverpilot]

Non-standard freq - sounds like a good reason for the rest of us to use FF.



Anyway, Why is it an "or" question? You have two radios, why not do both? FF and A2A.



I don't think A2A is useful on a cross country. I don't make it a habit to self-announce my position every few miles and I doubt anyone else does. FF or, preferably, IFR for XCs.



But in the practice area, 122.75 is an absolute must around Denver. FF can advise of traffic but can't tell you that the traffic is going to begin a steep turn in 3...2...1... But A2A can (sometimes).

"Around Denver" is a bit much. There's only two significant practice areas south and the BJC->->BLD->FNL->GXY->EIK box is just nutty.

The chances someone will be announcing anything useful air-to-air up north is laughable.

Way better with FF up there. Actually, you're way better with it south, too... And the DEN TRACON is very helpful compared to many Bravos.

 

[alfadog]

What if you set the freq for monitoring the CTAF without transmitting? Might that lead to forgetting to turn the volume back up? I've managed to leave the volume down a couple of (embarrassing) times and resolved to not turn it down anymore but I don't have an easy way to open the squelch on my primary radio either.

The radios I fly with are easy to unsquelch so I have little fear of accidentally leaving the volume down. But I will likely start monitoring 121.5 and coincidentally, I flew my BFR yesterday and the CFI showed me the quick load of 121.5 on the 430W.