What does it mean?

[RRR]

I am clueless to air monitoring. I recently plugged in a couple of AIR freqs into my scanner, and I occasionally hear something like "Zero 884 Delta, 436" or something like that, or "Zulu Foxtrot 34 zero", then no response from anyone else.

What is the purpose for these transmissions? Is there a designated altitude or area a pilot must call in a reference or something?

Very noob questions, I know, and I probably didn't get the quotes above correct either

 

[W8RMH]

Those are the callsigns being transmitted from the aircraft. You are only hearing the aircraft side of the conversation because of their altitude/height. Like a radio tower 10,000 feet high.

You would have to be very close to the ground station to hear their side. Again, due to their altitude, the aircraft can receive them where you can't.

If you want to gain some experience listing to air comms, which is also spoken very fast, try listening to air feeds at http://www.liveatc.net/

 

[Jay911]

Here's a couple of links that will help explain.

Comms Transcript

AirDisaster.Com: Air Traffic Control Transcript: American 587

What you're hearing in those particular examples above is typically an aircraft confirming an instruction given to them, which they repeat back (in part) along with their callsign (or part of their callsign). It might go like this:

N987YS: "Edmonton Center, November 987 Yankee Sierra with you at twelve thousand, requesting flight level 230."

EDM: "November 987 Yankee Sierra, radar identified, cleared to eighteen thousand, expect FL230."

N987YS: "18000, 7 Yankee Sierra."

 

[RRR]

...Very interesting... Thank you for the info