Ground communications outlets (GCO) have been installed at some U.S. airports to provide a means for

pilots An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

on the ground to communicate with

flight service station A flight service station (FSS) is an air traffic facility that provides information and services to aircraft pilots before, during, and after flights, but unlike air traffic control (ATC), is not responsible for giving instructions or clearances or ...

s and

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airs ...

(ATC) facilities for the purpose of filing, opening and closing VFR or

IFR In aviation, instrument flight rules (IFR) is one of two sets of regulations governing all aspects of civil aviation aircraft operations; the other is visual flight rules (VFR). The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) ''Instrument Fly ...

flight plans; obtaining weather briefings and clearances; and similar communications. Larger facilities instead have a

remote communications outlet Remote communications outlets (RCO) are remote aviation band radio transceivers, established to extend the communication capabilities of Flight Information Centres (FIC) and flight service stations (FSS). Pilots can find RCO frequencies in charts ...

(RCO) installed, which allows pilots to communicate directly over a remote radio transmitter/receiver with the facility. A GCO instead connects with the aircraft/pilot via a radio transmitter/receiver, but with the ground facility via a telephone connection. Special electronic components in the GCO connect the radio communications from the aircraft to the telephone communications from the facility. Because GCO units are not part of the official air traffic control radio system, they may not receive regular operational status checks and therefore may experience unreported outages. However, since they do not provide guaranteed service, they also entail lower costs and can be installed at smaller locations that cannot afford an RCO. In areas with

cellular telephone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive telephone call, calls over a radio freq ...

coverage, the use of a GCO has sometimes been replaced by simply calling the air traffic control facility directly. The system uses the airport's listed frequency ( 121.725 or 135.075 ). The system is activated with four "key clicks" on the VHF radio to contact the appropriate ATC facility or six "key strokes" to contact the FSS. There is a timer on the

modem A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...

connection. If no voice is heard for a preset interval, the system disconnects. The VHF transceiver is very low power, 2–5

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

s, which sometimes limits access. The GCO system is intended to be used only on the ground. GCO availability is noted in the text portion of the airport diagram. at Texas DOT airport directory

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ground Communication Outlet Aviation in the United States Air navigation

See also

References