As an Airline Pilot you may require to talk to your Ground Support whenever you experience some problem. When this happens, you should not be stuck with yet another problem – How to establish contact?

If a Standard Procedure was in place whereby radio contact was established as soon as possible after take-off and SELCAL guard maintained throughout the flight, the problem of making contact when you need it the most would have been eliminated regardless of whether it is Air-to-Ground or Ground-to-Air. 

Some airlines rely on ACARS and other automated systems for the communication of data between the Flight Deck and Dispatch/Operations. What happens when those systems fail? You would have to revert to another system, probably the HF radio. If HF radio is to be considered a reliable back-up, we definitely recommend its functionality be verified before it is needed.

Dispatchers often require us to contact one of their flights, but if the crew has neglected to tune to one of our frequencies, we have no means of contacting the flight, hence unfortunately unable to respond to the request.

So…stay tuned to Stockholm Radio