I have given a number of Blue and Bronze radio courses over the last few months and have been thinking about the way we teach radio in the corps especially having completed my BTEC Level 3 training (Old PTLLS qualification) which really opened my eyes with regards to teaching methods.
It seems rather lacking that we are trying to teach radio purely from Powerpoint presentations but don’t include any type of audio content which the cadets could use for revision purposes, at least none that I have found! Surely the best way to teach radio, being a primarily audio experience is to provide audio examples!
Does anyone have, or know of, any good audio examples of ATC/Military levels of radio conversations that could be used for training? If not then I intend to put some together but don’t want to re-invent the wheel so to speak.
My only slight problem with radio is that I occasionally flip flop between modes as I am a Class A radio amateur (G0ZAP) as well as a civilian flying instructor and obviously an ATC radio instructor (Blue, Bronze and Silver) which can result in the occasional isolated errors until I get 100% into the appropriate mode - hence my occasional use of “Standby 1” instead of Wait, among others!
I am thinking of about 20-30 sample recordings ranging from very simple basic communications to quite complex net examples covering the Blue and Bronze syllabi (or is that syllabuses … ) . As for the Silver Syllabus this may also be a useful future addition but the cadets should really have all the basic knowledge before they embark on this course anyway.
So, can anyone else help with an existing audio resource and if I do end up generating some content would others be interested in receiving it or even helping in its production.
I am not aware of anything like that but I agree it would be useful.
The current 1CC/Blue radio presentations do have some embedded audio clips but they aren’t real people speaking and aren’t as good as an example that me may wish to use.
Potentially we could ask someone to record one of the regular radio nets or exercised but there is a risk of duff procedures (even from the NCS ) so might not be what we need.
For many years (about 20 of them) I’ve been meaning to ‘get around’ to making some audio clips to illustrate strength and readability for radio checks… If someone beats me to it I’ll be a happy chap
I am a teacher by trade and I agree about the resources and approaches taken in RAFAC. If these techniques were used in schools today there would be some uproar by the students and a high amount of ‘switch off’.
Anything which can bring in a range of activities that may the preferred learning methods of the group is the best way forward. It sounds like your PTLLS is working well. You could tie the recordings in with a few other tools that would engage cadet feedback and discussion.
If you wanted, pop me a msg and I can send you a load of different, free, tools which you might be able to use.
Good luck with the recordings. If you need to do a coma night sometime, let me know and we can try and tie up or squadron to be on channel with you.
There’s quite a few air traffic radio examples online, not so many current mil examples for obvious reasons.
It would be fairly straightforward from a technical point of view to create some clips (Audio or video) but they would need to be scripted and checked, so as others have said we are not passing on duff procedures.
We would also need a secure place to host the audio. I would be wary of allowing those type of files to be downloaded to a PC, even from Bader. So it might have to go on a secure or at least private media server.
We pass all that stuff in the clear and our procedures obfuscate or omit potentially sensitive information (and most of that isn’t really that sensitive). I wouldn’t bust a gut about keeping the example files secure.
While I agree with you in general, there are some elements we’d have to exclude from an uncontrolled server and it would limit the ability to use messages with errors as a teaching tool.
It could be hosting on Bader or using password protected files is ‘good enough’, I will ask. The Corps does have a video streaming platform which would support that.
It’s been a gripe of mine for years that the RAFAC-supplied materials don’t even match the RAFAC-taught methods (INTROSH, anyone? Or have they ditched that at ATF now?)
Surely the only aspects requiring any degree of security are callsigns and authentication? I don’t think there’s anything particularly special about most prowords in use.
However, a bank of files on Sharepoint would be enough - download and use/insert as necessary.
There is a publication called CAP413 that is published by the Civil Aviation Authority (civvie equivalent of MAA), that details all of the RT for aviation you could hope for, findable by Google.
A few years back military aircrew were aligned to the language used in CAP413 so should be good for cadet knowledge
But only in a “general interest” sense. The radio syllabus and aviation radio are different, if related, subjects and too much exposure to CAP413 RT could adversely affect their understanding or absorption of the radio procedures used in the syllabus.
There are plenty of similarities between ACP125 (on which our comms are based) and CAP413, but enough differences to make it an issue.
) so might not be what we need.