Bear Talk

I am slowly but surely morphing into a crustacean. A good sign. According to my doctor whom I visited last night under my make-shift burqa. He prescribed me some bazooka anti-viral medicine to squelch the virus's war path, albeit with a $231 price tag for 30 pills.

Talking to Santa Monica Ground is easy. The difficulty starts when I am up in the air and need to communicate with Air Traffic Control ("ATC"). Thus far, Chris has handled all the bear talk. I call it bear talk because it is often incomprehensible. To me at least. The voices sound artificially deep and the conversation riddled with code. I just listen in with my mouth ajar looking all confused. Whenever ATC barks out to look out for nearby traffic I always whip my head about, usually in the wrong direction, and squint hard. I can barely track down the moving airplane much less identify its make. Malibu, Katana, etc...they all look like zooming bugs in the air.

I spent today reading Rod's Radio Communications chapter, hoping to put together a list of common phrases I would use. Radio talk or avspeak takes practice like anything esle. However, Rod's chapter focused mostly on radio operations and not the actual phrases themselves. I need to just listen in and considered purchasing a Very High Frequency ("VHF") radio. However, I found out that VHF transmissions are "line of sight." To receive live air traffic talk I cannot have any building obstructing the transmission between my radio and the tower. I thus settled for listening via liveatc.net but the only Class D airport in the area that broadcasts its transmissions online is El Monte Airport (KEMT). Well, something was better than nothing. So Buh Bye Mariah! Hello El Monte ATC!