Hi all,
I will in a couple of days take my bronze radio assesment and was wondering whether there exists any sort of informal ATC/CCF Radio platform. Does anyone know if there is I would like to get some more practice. If there isnt im thinking of making a informal discord server that allows all levels of radio. Unless that violates some sort of security code or mahbe im just being optimistic.
Thanks a lot,
There is only one approved online system for radio practice called Channel D. You would need to get access via your unit staff (log in details) who themselves get it from the Wing/regional radio Officer.
You’d be very lucky to be able to turn that around in a couple of days.
We tried Channel D and didn’t think it provided much benefit over Teams, but certainly made things more complex.
For informal practice, I’d suggest arranging something with a fellow cadet and using a freely available voice app.
Apart from the fact you can do a radio assessment on it, which you can’t do on a Teams session.
It’s good way to make things unnecessarily difficult and put people off
Our wing comms officer said that teams is the only platform to be used for blue comms assessments, using the mute function as a PTT.
Of course, we always use it for assessments…
There isn’t an informal platform because of security and more importantly safeguarding rules.
It’s good that you want to practise. The best option would be to ask your Sqn to set up a Teams session for yourself and any other cadets prepping for the assessment. It would still need staff to supervise of course.
Well, yeah, you can use Teams. I was meaning the only VoIP “radio” or chat platform.
Eh? When?
Back in April. No mention of Channel D at the time or since from anyone else. This thread is the first time I’m hearing of it, and having looked on SharePoint and found the LaSER instructions on how to use it, it looks like a neat idea! I consider myself pretty radio-savey (read geeky) and am surprised I’ve not heard of it before.
Channel D is mostly being used for Bronze or bronze level and up. Teams is approved for Blue practice and assessment. But it is up to RRCOs how Channel D is used in their area, they control the access.
Same in my neck of the woods
I’ve just gone back through my email to see if I missed anything. I searched “channel D” and the only thing that comes up is an email from one of the LaSER monthly update things they’ve been doing that has the how-to document mentioned. That’s the only reference to Channel D that I can see, and no wonder I missed it as I’ve generally not kept up to speed on the how-to guides. My bad I guess.
I’d say that unless you are a Wing Radio officer, fair enough.
Hopefully once Sqns are back they will be able to set up Channel D on a PC for inter-unit radio practice. But you can request the access details via your WRCO now to see how it works.