how to waste 10 minutes of hobbs time (broken radio edition)

exncsurfer

exncsurfer

Pattern Altitude
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exncsurfer
I'm not sure what the etiquette is for waiting for a takeoff clearance, but I'd probably suggest its less than 10 min. I can't remember exactly if the radio stopped working after I started waiting or before, but I don't think I'd have started waiting without getting some sort of reply to my 'ready for departure' call. So, I'm sitting there, why am I not going, hmm, ... ok yea I see the traffic, ok clear now, they'll probably want to hold me for 2 minutes for wake turbulence.... hmmm..... its been two minutes, I'll give them another minute.... where are those guys in the golf cart going, hmm, they're coming my way, guy in the golf cart holds up a radio and waves it around, I call tower, nothing, crap. Switch radios, call tower, 'we've been trying to reach you', I tell them I must have faulty radio confirm I have resolved my radio problem(by using radio#2), give the golf cart guys a thumbs up, and i'm off finally. I was just doing pattern work and after finishing as I'm taxiing back I test radio#1 again with ground, nothing. Anyway lesson learned is if you feel the tower has forgotten about you, go ahead and call them, you might find that you have a broken radio.

I usually use radio#2 for ground/atis, radio#1 for tower/departure. I'm wondering if the renter before me had this issue because the same frequencies(local ground and tower) were in both radios which I though was odd. It would have been helpful if they had written up the issue.
 
interesting, splitting up ground and tower on diff comm's. do you do a separate radio check? if not I reckon you will now :)
 
I always split ground and tower between radios.

Tim
 
eman1200 said:
interesting, splitting up ground and tower on diff comm's. do you do a separate radio check? if not I reckon you will now :)
Click to expand...

Everyone has their own method for dealing with two flip-flop radios. I've seen people split them this way. And of course, some of the old junk I flew in the 90s didn't have flip-flops so switching whole radios to flip was the norm.

I tend to do ATIS on Com 2 and Tower/Ground on Comm 1 with Departure pre-loaded in Comm 2 knowing that's my "riskiest" switch if TX doesn't work on Comm 2.

If I have to do Clearance Delivery, that's on Comm 2 also and that way both radios get both an RX and a TX cycle before I'm airborne. Comm 2's first TX of the day is CD and Comm 1's is Ground...

But in the case of no CD, Comm 2 hasn't had a TX cycle before I'm airborne. And I keep that in mind at the "contact departure" stage of things. That I might be on a radio that hasn't proven itself yet today...

I've seen other flows for the frequencies done and/or taught. Various themes on the canon.
 
I split ground and tower as well. I use com 1 for tower/departure

And comm 2 for atis/clearence/FBO frequency
 
I tend to use either #1 or 2 depending on which sounds best for ATC and the other for ATIS. So far I haven't been caught speechless when there's a been a reason to transmit on my "listening" radio. Note to self, make sure the transmitters on both radios work.
 
So, y'all don't monitor 121.5 on #2 so you can holler "yer on guarrrdddd!"?
 
mscard88 said:
So, y'all don't monitor 121.5 on #2 so you can holler "yer on guarrrdddd!"?
Click to expand...

LOL. 121.5 goes into Comm 2 in cruise. Up until then it's not important enough to get a coveted memory slot. Those are reserved for useful frequencies. :)
 
Normally I talk on comm1 and monitor comm2.

Exception is when I'm safety pilot and the audio panel has 1/2 split. Then I'll talk on 2 if I'm need an extra request like a PAR into NAS Fort Worth.
 
Similar to some others, my typical set up is:

#1 - tower/ground/CTAF/center - basically anyone I might talk to.

#2 - ATIS/121.5 - anything I might just listen to.

Not a hard and fast rule but just how I typically do it.
 
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