VATCAN

I was out at CYOW the other day, doing a little planespotting, and I noticed that clearance delivery was providing the departure frequency after the squawk code. "... squawk 3552, departure frequency xxx.xx"

I'm presuming this is to make it just that little bit easier further down the line, when clearing the a/c for takeoff. The tower controller just has to say "contact departures airborne, winds ..." instead of saying the freq as well. Probably is good for the pilots too, one less bit of information to worry about.

Has anyone else heard this in real life listening to clearance?

Just a shot in the dark, but maybe it was because there are multiple DEP positions online? Ottawa doesn't strike me as a high density airport, so it's kind of a head scratcher. Frequencies are always listed on airport charts, maybe they switched frequencies? Who knows...

Good observation!

Throughout Ontario, as far as I can recall, Departure Freqs are always listed as part of the clearance, with no exceptions I can think of. And I've operated out of most airports throughout southern ontario, including CYYZ as well as many of the satellites.

Rob

It is given because after the planes take off you can hear ATC say - "Air Canada 190 , contact departure." It makes them not have to say - " Air Canada 190, contact departure on ___.__ , good day."

There is a spot in the IFR clearance where ATC can add it but I would say they only do it when maybe a different frequency than normal is in use.

In normal ops it would be highly redundant, the SID chart would have the frequency, the Tower controller would issue in on the switch over to DEP.

It was most likely because another frequency was being used for departure (I know at CYHZ terminal in real life they were using the VFR 118.7 for all arrivals in deps in the last few weeks, probably due to transmitter maintenance) and ATC wanted to emphasize it.

And then finally, there is controller preference and habit that could have played a role too...

At Montreal, there's 2 dep freq, 124.65 and 118.9, and it's given by DEL.

TWR can then only say "Contact departure when airborne, winds, cleared for takeoff".

It's not in the manops but nothing says they cannot do it. A local procedure that is use at many places from what I read...

It's not redundant info, not saying it would probably lead to many pilots a day calling the wrong freq. even though the SID says "SB departures: 118.9"...

With only one published departure frequency at CYOW, that frequency must have been unavailable for use at that time (perhaps transmitter or receiver maintenance). They were probably issuing either a back-up frequency or the Arrival frequency on a short-term basis.