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Listening Watch
"We have two ears and one mouth and they are to be used in proportion."
-Unknown-
Have you ever had to switch frequencies, only for a short time and elected not to tell ATC? Maybe it was to speak to company? Maybe it was an old friend on one of the air-to-air frequencies?
Or maybe you've been chatting away in the cockpit with another pilot and heard a quick transmission but didn't catch if it was for you. "Was he calling us?"
Most of the transmission over an aircraft radio are routine, and the more we fly, the more it seems we hear the same things over and over again. We get used to the chatter on the radio and filter much of it out as not being relevant or important. This is normal for our brains to filter out unnecessary information. In fact, we believe we get quite good at picking our call-sign out of a flurry of ATC transmissions.
In short, all of us become complacent. And complacency kills. As monotonous as it may sometimes be, maintaining a listening watch on aviation frequencies is the only way to catch the 2-5% of transmissions that will keep our aircraft from hitting another one, or the ground.