I use vPilot and to find the CTAF frequency I just type the command, for example **.ctaf KJFK ** and “Voilá” the frequency for that airport is displayed. The only thing I am finding out is that, not every pilot is using the CTAF, unfortunately.
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Sorry, I meant to say that my understanding under the trial conditions is that a pilot is not required to transmit on Unicom but is still required to monitor Unicom; otherwise the trial would be useless with transmitting on both.
Or use VPilot Dot command .ctaf xxxx I monitor 122.8 on Com1 and Com2 my active, to the CTAF freq. Now if someone isn’t using the CTAF freq and is on 122.8 I still can monitor them.
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I think it’s time to just go back to 122.8. Too many people either don’t read about CTAF, or just don’t care. Sometimes it’s great, everyone using ctaf, communicating, great…however I’m finding more and more, less people are using ctaf, had a 777 in CLT just taxiing around, pulled in front of me. DM’d them and the response was “I’ve been talking on Unicom maybe you should listen”…
TO my point… I’m done with this ctaf stuff, too many people just don’t care.
Yes I will talk on CTAF and monitor 22.8, but it’s time to end this, again too many people just don’t use it
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Just as it was with people not using Unicom, people who do not, or are unwilling to use CTAF should be walloped so a Supervisor can speak with them and take appropriate actions.
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Sorry, I thought that this was a trial. Is it mandatory on Vatsim members to obey the rules of a trial? And that not following the trial rules would make one subject to penalty? If so, then surely that should have been stated at the outset.
I actually believed that it was a test of the system to check on viabillty, popularity and functionality. Or are the members of Vatsim being forced into something which, from the accounts that I have seen, is not exactly popular nor functional, before the final analysis is conducted?
If ctaf implementation in the US is a fait accompli, just tell us, and stop the pretense.
This is a trial for the US. You cannot have a trial without an honest implementation to assess its effectiveness. You need mandatory use for something like this in order to have a honest implementation. You cannot just fly in airspace and say “I’m not going to follow that rule.”
Plus, the CoC also makes reference to “other frequency”. Other divisions have used this to define other frequencies. VATBRZ previously used another frequency and I believe VATPAC currently uses different frequencies.
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I hear what you say but even during a trial I understand that the CoC still requires 122.80 to be monitored. Maybe if you were doing that you would have heard the 777 
The CoC states “or other frequency”. During the trial, this other frequency is CTAF as approved by BoG vote. Some people do also monitor 122.8 during the trial, but there is no requirement to do so.
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Bottom line of my point, wasn’t necessarily to also “monitor unicom”. My point was I’m finding more and more people simply aren’t caring about using CTAF. Sometimes it works well, but mostly (at least at the BIG airports with flight from all around the world) the majority of users are on Unicom, again either didn’t read the print when filing, or simply doesn’t care. Either way, I feel this trial period has had more of a negative impact when uncontrolled, vs trying to get everyone for an airport on a CTAF.
I think that in order to have an absolute assessment, the CTAF trial needs to be worldwide, rather than a set region, again VATSIM being a WW network.
One big thing with this isn’t that we should abandon it just because “people aren’t using it”. A lot of us here have already stated that this is a problem, but it bears repeating here even more: The issue here is LACK OF EDUCATION. Pilots will not do or implement the proper tools they need to use if they do not know about it. If they all go off of bad/second hand information/go with what everyone else is doing, it doesn’t make what they are doing right. If quality is our issue, abandoning what is right to go back to “monkey see/monkey do” is still going back to what is wrong and giving us what we do not need.
So the issue here is lack of pilot education, not that the technology being used to make things better is not working.
BL.
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I stopped flying online in March because of this. I knew nothing about the CTAF policy until a broadcast on vpilot one day while flying. The communications to get this out and to the pilots is as bad as the use of it and unicom on vatsim. Instead of creating a new frequency policy that most don’t use. How about getting people to use unicom with more consistency? Then you can try something like this.I was flying with 2 groups not communicating instead of one.
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Again, it comes down to education. If pilots don’t know what is correct to do, they will keep doing what everyone else is doing, regardless of it is correct or not. And that is part and parcel of the problem, as what we are doing isn’t necessarily real.
Is UNICOM broken? essentially, yes; Things for it have become better than what we had. Keep in mind that both in yours and my early time on the network, we were getting calls on UNICOM for traffic landing at YSSY when we are at CYVR, because there was no range to what we had. And even with that, proper use of it wasn’t even correct. Why was it that way? Because we had no documentation or procedure on how to actually use any UNICOM or CTAF frequency. So it became a proverbial wild west that has grown out to what we have now.
As for no communications? We had that announced here, announced in email, announced on the VATSIM Discord, on the VATUSA Discord, in MyVATSIM, and announced everywhere else applicable. The only other way to get this out would be to email blast it to everyone on the network, regardless of if this is applicable to the pilot in their home country, and whether or not they fly into our out of the US. Then we deal with the backlash of sending something unnecessary to pilots who will never use it.
Finally, keep in mind that this is A TRIAL. Documentation on this and how to use it has also been sent for this, as well as the scope of the trial. What else could VATSIM and VATUSA do? They have done the right thing in getting the word out and where to find the information for it, but if pilots are not willing or are blissfuily unaware that this is happening, that isn’t VATSIM’s or VATUSA’s fault, because they did get the word out; they lead the proverbial horse to the water; but it is up to that horse to drink. If the horse doesn’t, is it VATSIM’s fault?
The solution here is getting this information into the hands of the pilots, so they are aware of it. Now that we have it, that information needs to go out. It has, but more needs to go out.
Last year, there was this thread in this very forum:
Everyone there was saying how implementing this would be a huge benefit to this network instead of cramming so many pilots at one field or even multiple fields, on the same UNICOM frequency, causing congestion and possible NORDO.
But now that we have implemented this in a trial, people are now saying that it is bad? We should be happy that this is being trialed, because given that thread and now, VATSIM can’t win for trying.
BL.
Totally agree with you, Brad. If people only would communicate as described in the regulation and read their mail/discord channel etc. everything would be so much easier. It’s not VATSIM fault or VATUSA, it’s people not adhering to protocol (knowingly or not) who are the problem. I agree, that CTAF at major airport are not great and implementation of a system to cope with this (maybe letting 122.8 be the answer) would be in order and leave CTAF to where it belongs, could be the answer. We had the same cries, when we implemented 8.33kHz spacing in Europe - now it is a fact of (VATSIM) life. Give it time.
Can VATSIM call this test a loss yet. You can blame pilot training and people not fowling the rules, you can blame the pathetic, non existent, hilarious attempt to never enforcement the policy at all. Honestly, Its both. But what it is doing is killing the user experience.
I fly into LGA, JFK, EWR all the time and IMO, it was way better having all three Bravos going on unicom at one time, then having 3 CTAFS, and then people still on Unicom. Especially at LGA where intersecting runways are used daily, its become a poor joke, ruins the experience, almost rather just connect mid flight and skip the crazy, of course that would be against the rules too!
I blame the pilots in the first two months, but at a certain point VATSIM/VATUSA has made no initiatives to further enforce the use and consistency of this policy.
What features and benefits is CTAF actually providing? What gains does this bring to the community long term? Will these benefits enhance the user experience in a way that unicom didn’t? is this server related? What results or KPI’s are you looking for to competently make a decision on the effectives, or lack there of on this initiative.
Final food for thought, Say if you hit “X” amount of dollars in donations you’ll kill CTAF. Bet you hit that donation number by the EOW!
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I disagree… I love flying into an airport and not hearing unnecessary chatter. My experience has been that everyone using CTAF actually knows what they are doing and I don’t have to listen to those that think I care that they are refueling their plane at Gate 56.
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That’s awesome, I wish I could have the same experience. I did a early morning flight this morning. EDV5216 KDTW-KJFK CRJ9, and again not one aircraft was making transmissions on CTAF at JFK.
It doesn’t help with the 777 being released, a increase amount of users flying into the US that probably normally don’t, and lack of knowledge on the use of CTAF seems to be greater.
It just needs to be enforced to work. Pilot training and requirements to be on the network is a whole other topic. Pilot qualification should equal that of controllers, but that’s also imo lol, Hopefully they can find a happy medium soon.
Is CTAF actually control tower frequencies. CTAF for KJFK it is 119.10, KLGA 118.70 , KEWR 118.30 . Those frequencies are also control tower on the charts . I can’t find CTAF for KBUF airport but control tower is 120.50, KERI is 118.10 for CTAF and charts also show 118.10
Are they both the same, just a different name where one is called CTAF
The way it works in the US is that you have airports that are never controlled, those will usually have a CTAF published on the charts (I believe if they don’t have one publish, you have to default to 122.900?), and airports that are always controlled for which no CTAF frequency will be published (hence VATSIM’s solution for the moment is to just take the TWR frequency and designate that as the CTAF; if there are multiple TWR frequencies, it is usually the first one listed on the FAA chart). and then you have airports that are only controlled during certain times of the day but uncontrolled during others where a CTAF will be published in addition to the TWR frequency, but usually the CTAF is also the TWR frequency.
so for the examples you listed:
- KJFK has no CTAF IRL, but two TWR frequencies - the first one listed in the charts is 119.1 so that’s what VATSIM has designated as the CTAF for KJFK
- KLGA also has no CTAF IRL, but only one TWR frequency which is 118.7, so that got picked as a CTAF for VATSIM
- KEWR likewise has no CTAF IRL, but also only one TWR on 118.3, so again, this was picked as the CTAF for VATSIM
- KBUF also has no CTAF IRL with only one TWR frequency, so the proper CTAF to use should be 120.5 (i.e. the TWR frequency), though I see how it can be confusing with the CTAF not being listed in the VATSIM AIP - seems like the person responsible for maintaining the VATSIM AIP in Cleveland ARTCC forgot to put that in
- KERI is not controlled 24/7, so it has a published CTAF on 118.1 which is also the TWR frequency while the airport is controlled
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Thanks for the explanation. The biggest problem as i see it the lack of communication " text or voice" of any kind . You see so many pilots at airports on 122.80 and still no communication . It will be interesting to see how will all this be resolved.
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