Comfortable silence?

midwestpa24

midwestpa24

En-Route
Joined
Mar 4, 2016
Messages
4,992
Display Name
Display name:
midwestpa24
I had cause today to do a 2 hour out and back trip. I filed and flew IFR both legs, but the weather was easy VFR.

On the way home in two different sectors, it was dead quiet. After about 20 minutes I called the controller just to make sure they were still there. He sounded surprised, but then gave me the next sector's frequency. After switching, I went another 20 minutes of dead air (peace and quiet). I quired this controller as well just to be sure.

Anyone else ever wonder if the radio is working when you are working with ATC and have dead silence for long periods, or is that just me?

I've had this happen other times, but usually because the weather was bad and I was the only bonehead flying in it! In those cases I've had the controller call me just to check in.
 
"Approach, N12345, don't you hate that?"
"N12345, approach, hate what?
"Approach, N12345, uncomfortable silences."silence.jpg
 
Last edited:
I think I've only ever had a silence like that once, and it was on a nasty imc day where I was obviously the only guy crazy enough to be flying around at those altitudes. On VFR days I wish they'd shut up so I can listen to my podcast. Yeah, I could squawk 1200 and talk to nobody, but I prefer to be tagged up whenever possible.
 
It happens a lot when you get out of the busy corridors - you just go from frequency to frequency with nothing in between.
 
midwestpa24 said:
...

Anyone else ever wonder if the radio is working when you are working with ATC and have dead silence for long periods, or is that just me?

...
Click to expand...

it's not you. I usually pull the squelch to make sure I didn't turn the volume all the way down.
 
Had that happen during COVID lockdown. The controller was working multiple sectors and apparently the one that I was in didn't have very many planes entering or exiting. One eventually did call up and it took a few tries to get a response.
 
I haven’t encountered it much that I can recall during the day time, but it’s par for the course when flying the backside of the clock. The most notable of times was my return trip from Zephyrhills and didn’t land til after 2am. Radio was bone silent a good bit of the way back.
 
only once that I can recall. one of the first longer xc flight I took was a PnP flight. on the way back it went silent for a long time. I sheepishly asked if anyone was there. she said yeah, it's just really quiet today.
 
Here in the southwest and late at night silence was the norm. Evey now and then the silence would be broken with a ''still there.??'' followed by ATC ''still here''...
 
Not just you, happens to me all of the time. Sometimes I don’t want to talk to people but I might tune in the frequency to hear people talking. There’s a number of dead spots as well, or ATC forgot to transfer frequencies and another pilot would relay the message to me.
 
Yup, it happens. Last time was last week. I noticed atc's calls fading out and getting broken, so I called, no answer. I turned off the squelch called again telling him I was losing him. He responded, only got my call sign. So I told him I couldn't understand him. Then I heard say another frequency, that was it. I changed, and checked in. We got each other loud and clear, he asked what I was trying to say on the other frequency. I told him I was saying I was losing him. I was in heavy smoke from Canada and I think that made the radios less effective.
 
My radios act weird when flying through rain.
 
midwestpa24 said:
I had cause today to do a 2 hour out and back trip. I filed and flew IFR both legs, but the weather was easy VFR.

On the way home in two different sectors, it was dead quiet. After about 20 minutes I called the controller just to make sure they were still there. He sounded surprised, but then gave me the next sector's frequency. After switching, I went another 20 minutes of dead air (peace and quiet). I quired this controller as well just to be sure.

Anyone else ever wonder if the radio is working when you are working with ATC and have dead silence for long periods, or is that just me?

I've had this happen other times, but usually because the weather was bad and I was the only bonehead flying in it! In those cases I've had the controller call me just to check in.
Click to expand...

This happens to me very often when flying over central Indiana talking to Grissom approach.
 
Last edited:
The longest periods of silence I have experienced were probably on a Civil Air Patrol round-trip between Oakland CA and Portland, OR on 9/12/2001.
 
midwestpa24 said:
I had cause today to do a 2 hour out and back trip. I filed and flew IFR both legs, but the weather was easy VFR.

On the way home in two different sectors, it was dead quiet. After about 20 minutes I called the controller just to make sure they were still there. He sounded surprised, but then gave me the next sector's frequency. After switching, I went another 20 minutes of dead air (peace and quiet). I quired this controller as well just to be sure.

Anyone else ever wonder if the radio is working when you are working with ATC and have dead silence for long periods, or is that just me?

I've had this happen other times, but usually because the weather was bad and I was the only bonehead flying in it! In those cases I've had the controller call me just to check in.
Click to expand...
It's happened to me once or twice. I rattled their cage after awhile. Sounds like maybe you woke the first guy up and he realized he should have already had you handed off.
 
I frequently have the same thing happen. I’m not sure why, but in radio-quiet northern Michigan, controllers always forget to give me handoffs…I fly a same-route path to northern Michigan often, so I know exactly where the sector handoffs are. More times then not, after allowing several minutes of silence with no handoff, I’ll call them and asked if I missed something (I know I probably didn’t, just trying not to sound like a d1ck). Then they give me the new frequency, sometimes they’re almost inaudible and I have to open my squelch because I’m nearly out of radio range.
 
My last ifr flight, I was in the clouds bored out of my mind. Realized it had been quiet for a bit, tuned in 121.5 and less than a minute later atc came on with a new frequency for me. And we all lived happily ever after.
 
Radio quiet happens a lot between Wilkes Barre Pennsylvania and Youngstown Ohio
 
Last edited:
I experience that frequently when flying roughly north-south through east TX / west LA. Not much traffic out there.
 
Happened to me too in the middle of the night somewhere in the middle of nowhere over the Midwest. I also checked in with the controller to make sure I’m still in radio contact.
 
Jim_R said:
I experience that frequently when flying roughly north-south through east TX / west LA. Not much traffic out there.
Click to expand...
Flew over Monroe LA one time and ATC must have been just as bored as us asking about the weather at our altitude and telling us about a guy a few miles ahead of us. Not because he was a traffic issue he just wanted to let us know he was breaking in his new engine like 5k feet below us. Nice to have time for those fun informal moments.
 
nwaflyer said:
Flew over Monroe LA one time and ATC must have been just as bored as us asking about the weather at our altitude and telling us about a guy a few miles ahead of us. Not because he was a traffic issue he just wanted to let us know he was breaking in his new engine like 5k feet below us. Nice to have time for those fun informal moments.
Click to expand...
Don't always have to be in the sticks for that. I took off from SE Houston one Saturday morning on the way to Lockhart in central TX. As I traversed the I-10 corridor between two Class B's, ATC asked me if I was going for BBQ, and when I said yes, he proceeded to give me his opinions of the Big 3 places there!
 
I once did a nonstop, non-refueled IFR/VFR flight of over 800 miles and never heard a peep except for frequency changes and the occasional "Say destination?"
 
Years ago was flying home cross country with flight following on Thanksgiving eve late, received a VERY early hand off to El Paso Class C that I need to cross to get to my field Dona Ana ... radio silence after hand off until I rounded the mountain a couple of minutes after midnight. Told the controller have a wonderful Thanksgiving after being cut loose, he joked and said," you're the only one to tell me that tonight" ... just then a FedEX preparing to taxi at KELP piped up," Frequency was too congested or I would have" ... we were all laughing ...



.
 
Last spring, we were returning from a trip late Sunday morning. Many times, I've experienced dead-air and it always became an uncomfortable feeling at some point. This time I knew something wasn't right as I was in fairly busy airspace just south of Atlanta and knew I should have been hearing some sort of chatter. Turns out the COM side of the radio I was talking to ATC on at the time died without any kind of visible or aural indication (other than dead-air). I ultimately switched radios and was immediately greeted by conversation on the freq. Turns out I hadn't missed any calls and I was in VMC the whole time, but it did increase the pucker factor at the time.
 
Had that in 2019, flying to Triple Tree in South Carolina from south Florida. Hurricane Dorian was still over the Bahamas, and all the flight schools on the east coast were still shut down and under evacuation, although Florida was great VFR. For the hour or so that we were with Jacksonville Center (late morning on a weekday), we were the only GA traffic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top