SELCAL

English

Alternative forms

• SelCal

Etymology

Blend of selective +‎ calling.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsɛl.kɔl/, /ˈsɛl.kɑl/

Noun

SELCAL (countable and uncountable, plural SELCALs)

1. (aviation) A system for alerting a specific aircraft that a radio station on the ground wishes to communicate with them, via transmitting an aircraft-specific sequence of audio tones over the aircraft's company radio frequency to an automatic decoder on board the aircraft.
2. (aviation, countable) An alert sent via this system.
   • 2018 February 8, Terry Liittschwager, chapter 32, in Wrongful Act‎^[1], archived from the original on 23 November 2024:

     Duncan awoke to Li Quan's nudging. “What is a sell call?” Duncan's brain needed a moment to come online; sell call didn't make sense. Then he made the connection. A SELCAL was coming through. He jerked the headset off Li Quan's head, donning it in time to hear the words “hundred Chinese aboard your aircraft.”

Verb

SELCAL (third-person singular simple present SELCALs, present participle SELCALing, simple past and past participle SELCALed)

1. (aviation, transitive) To send a SELCAL alert to (an aircraft).
   • 2018 February 8, Terry Liittschwager, chapter 32, in Wrongful Act‎^[2], archived from the original on 23 November 2024:

     Captains earned big bucks because they had to make big decisions. Captain Ray Hanson commanded ACI Flight 103, and he feared that today he would earn those big bucks.
     San Francisco ARINC had SELCALed them. When the flight engineer answered, he found Sam Devlin on the other end. The owner of Air Cargo International had an incredible message.