Matthew Waugh

Managing your communication radios is one component of good cockpit management. By exercising good practices in this area we can help avoid those common radio errors such as:

  • transmitting on the wrong frequency
  • “listening” with the volume turned down and wondering why nobody will reply
  • getting “one last check” of the ATIS or AWOS without excess distraction.

There are probably as many ways to manage the communication radios as there are pilots, but here’s my method, maybe you’ll like it, maybe you won’t, but please give some thought to YOUR communication radio management.

We’re assuming that we have two communication radios, with active and stand-by frequencies. That’s not too much to ask for, many cockpits are this well equipped. If you’re limited to one radio than you have to do whatever works.

First of all I’ll designate one of the radios my primary communication radio. This is the radio I’ll always transmit on, so I can set the transmitter selection on the audio panel and I’ve taken care of the error of transmitting on the wrong radio.

The other radio is my listening radio which I’ll use this radio for ATIS, AWOS etc.

On my primary radio I like to keep myself one frequency ahead, so I’ll try and figure out what the next frequency I’ll need by listening to the frequencies assigned to other aircraft that appear to be headed my way. I may not always get it right, but for the majority of the time when I do get it right having the right frequency “pre-selected” makes hand-offs just a little bit easier.

I like to keep a running list of the frequencies I’ve been assigned so that I’ll always know the last frequency I was talking to. I may not be able to raise anybody on a new frequency, but chances are if I was talking to somebody on one frequency I’ll be able to find them again if I need to. Why keep a running list when you have a stand-by window that’ll keep your frequency? Well if you suffer an electrical failure and need to reach for the hand-held that’ll be one time you REALLY wish you knew who to call and the stand-by window won’t do you much good then. Paper and pencil will always help you out!