Ask a Controller

[Echo Tango]

That's correct, we have to verify Mode C if we're giving you radar services, ie flight following. I personally do that once you tag up. In a busy environment, you're just giving the controller too much information to handle if you give everything on initial contact. Like I said earlier, it's a judgment call and circumstances differ (if it's slow it doesn't matter much), but we have to write a lot of info down on initial contact and it's really much easier to give you a code on the first transmission, and then radar ID you, give you the altimeter, and verify Mode C on the second transmission.

The example you provided is also a decent call. It gives me 2 or 3 bits of information I need and can remember before I can scrawl them down on a strip. It's a personal preference that I like to know destination rather than altitude (in our airspace for instance, anybody going eastbound has to be put into "the machine" in order to hand you off to the next facility.) A controller at the facility next door might have a completely different set of preferences. The key is to keep it short and sweet and give me info I can use.

Here is a bad initial call: "XXX Approach, Experimental 123, departed XXX airport, out of 1,400 for 5,500, we're about 8 or 9 miles west of XXX airport, northbound, transitioning your airspace, to Bravo India Victor, request flight following."

It has all of the information I need (and then some), but it's just too much. If I'm on a landline, I'll miss half of it.