Non-tower Over Flights
If you have occasion to cross in the vicinity of an uncontrolled airport, it is worth your while to monitor the CTAF frequency and even give sequential reports of your altitude and position in passing. It is only through frequent communication that everyone flying can provide and maintain situational awareness. The radio call you make may save your life.

With the advent of AWOS and ASOS at uncontrolled airports is always a good idea to add to your planned flights the appropriate frequencies so that you can briefly monitor them while en route.  This is the 'One Minute Weather' that is updated every minute giving weather information superior to anything the FSS can offer.  Nice to know information should you need to get on the ground in a hurry.  Nice to know information if it shows weather changes different from what you were told to expect.  When working through a radar facility either VFR or IFR the correct method of advising that you have the runway information at a non-towered airport is to state that you have the local
'One Minute Weather'

Non-tower Operation
Most midair collisions and near misses occur within a couple of miles of non-tower airports.

UNICOM
1.) Every tower airport has a UNICOM on frequency 122.95. The callup gives, "Airport name UNICOM, aircraft identification and request. Commonly used to order fuel, services, or transportation. 122.95 is the universal nationwide UNICOM frequency for TOWER fields. Only at the very largest airports will this frequency operate on a 24-hour basis.

The UNICOM frequency is the one used to order fuel, have a taxi waiting on your arrival, get a rental car, call your family, or any personal request.  Use it or lose it.

2) Many uncontrolled airports may offer UNICOM service on the CTAF frequency given on the sectional. This means that there may be someone on the field to respond to a radio call during normal working hours.

3) Giving position reports is an AIM recommended practice. NORDO (no radio) aircraft can't give or hear them. See and be seen is the backup procedure.

The callup
"Name of field UNICOM, aircraft identification, location, altitude, request traffic advisories (or other request) and name of the field." If there is no UNICOM response all further transmissions should be addressed to "traffic".

Intercoms and Headsets
Considering that the interior of a general aviation aircraft at cruise has a noise level at 90dB or equivalent of being within 15' of a heavy-rock band speaker, you should do all that you can to protect your hearing. Noise at this level will damage unprotected hearing. Damage is proportional to the duration and intensity of the noise. Once lost hearing can never be regained by you can protect what is left by using good intercoms and headsets. Hearing is irreplaceable.

When you can't hear'em, you really can't hear'em. In conversation we can lip-read the differences but over a microphone the higher frequencies between 3000 and 6000-hertz are chopped off at about 4000 hertz. Hearing difficulties you may be having may be an equipment problem as well as a biological one. Volume alone will not improve hearing or comprehension. Where there is a conflict of sounds and noises we fail to hear consonants first. The use of a noise-attenuating headset reduces the conflicting sounds. Different headsets are better at different frequencies. Try them out in an aircraft before buying.

Letters 'f' and 's' are most difficult to distinguish. Certain numbers such as seven, zero and six begin with a consonant sound that a person with a high frequency loss may not decipher. Two and three give difficulty, also. If you have subjected your ears to loud sounds such as gun shots, rock music or engine noise you may have temporary threshold shift. Over extended periods such sounds damage the cochlea cilia and cause permanent threshold slips. Once destroyed, the cilia never work again. While some hearing loss is normal with age given reasonable protection good hearing will last a lifetime.

A common pilot fault is completely failing to hear ATC. This is usually caused by over-absorption with the airplane. The post-landing trauma seems to occur at the same time the tower is giving you taxi directions and frequency changes. Usually you will be told to cross an active runway before changing to ground frequency or to hold short and then contact ground. Traffic advisories and sequencing seems to be unheard quite often. Acknowledge communications where you know they are directed to you and ask about any communications where you are uncertain.

A miscommunication either in saying or hearing may be minor or very serious. An ATC facility may record over 100 errors per day. The number one avoidable safety problem on a day-to-day basis is poor radio technique by pilots. A single radio call that should take five seconds will take a minute and three exchanges. An erroneous position report is potentially more dangerous than no report.

Many student pilots believe that by tuning and listening to aircraft radio communications that they will be able to improve their skills. I only wish that this were so. On any given frequency you will hear all levels of competence and incompetence. You are better off not to listen (to ATC frequencies) until your own skills have reached a level to where you can distinguish the good, bad and ugly.

If you use a tape recorder on your flights, you must be sure that your patch cord has the proper impedance. A Radio Shack cord with gray or black connectors will work with a 9-volt portable system. An aircraft hard-wired system operates on 12 or 24 volts and must have a 1-meg resistor installed to prevent overdriving the input to the recorder. The use of a tape recorder is the best way I know to improve learning retention. When you change what you read and hear into your own words it becomes a part of you.

Not every shop is capable of repairing the equipment. Often only factory repair is feasible. Radios are usually built to a technical standard order (TSO) and only repairs to that level meet FAR requirements.

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