In international 

aviation, SELCAL or SelCal is a selective-calling radio system that can

alert an aircraft's crew that a ground radio station wishes to communicate with the aircraft.
SELCAL uses a ground-based encoder and radio transmitter to broadcast an audio signal that is
picked up by a decoder and radio receiver on an aircraft. The use of SELCAL allows an aircraft
crew to be notified of incoming communications even when the aircraft's radio has been
muted. Thus, crewmembers need not devote their attention to continuous radio listening.
SELCAL operates on the high frequency (HF) or very high frequency (VHF) radio
frequency bands used for aircraft communications. HF radio often has extremely high levels of
background noise and can be difficult or distracting to listen to for long periods of time. As a
result, it is common practice for crews to keep the radio volume low unless the radio is
immediately needed. A SELCAL notification activates a signal to the crew that they are about to
receive a voice transmission, so that the crew has time to raise the volume.
An individual aircraft has its own assigned SELCAL code. To initiate a SELCAL
transmission, a ground station radio operator enters an aircraft's SELCAL code into a SELCAL
encoder. The encoder converts the four-letter code into four designated audio tones. The radio
operator's transmitter then broadcasts the audio tones on the aircraft's company radio
frequency channel in sequence: the first pair of tones are transmitted simultaneously, lasting
about one second; a silence of about 0.2 seconds; followed by the second pair of tones, lasting
about one second.
The code is received by any aircraft receiver monitoring the radio frequency on which
the SELCAL code is broadcast. A SELCAL decoder is connected to each aircraft's radio receiver.
When a SELCAL decoder on an aircraft receives a signal containing its own assigned SELCAL
code, it alerts the aircraft's crew by sounding a chime, activating a light, or both.
The crew next turns up the volume on the aircraft radio to hear the incoming voice
transmission. Using ICAO radio protocol, they must verify with the transmitting operator that
they are the intended message recipients. The crew then uses the received information.

A special decoder on the aircraft’s radio is programmed to recognize only the audio
frequencies of the SELCAL code assigned to the aircraft.  When the decoder receives the correct
aircraft SELCAL code, the decoder sends an alert message to the crew so they can turn the radio
audio volume back up to talk with the ground station radio operator.

SELCAL code assignments have a few rules that are followed to make sure the radio
systems are consistent in their usage.  Firstly, a character may never be repeated, i.e. a code
cannot use the ‘A’ twice.  Secondly, the first character of each pair must be shown with the
lowest alphanumeric character first, i.e. ‘A’ must be before ‘F’ or ‘D’ must be before ‘3’ or ‘5’
must be before ‘8’.
 The following table contains the original 16 SELCAL designators (A – S) and
corresponding frequencies and the new additional 16 SELCAL designators (T – 9) and
corresponding frequencies. The Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) are currently using the
original 16 SELCAL designators operationally and will have to upgrade their ground systems to
support the new SELCAL designators.
SELCAL Code Audio Frequency SELCAL Code Audio Frequency
Designator (Hz) Designator (Hz)
A 312.6 T 329.2
B 346.7 U 365.2
C 384.6 V 405
D 426.6 W 449.3
E 473.2 X 498.3
F 524.8 Y 552.7
G 582.1 Z 613.1
H 645.7 1 680
J 716.1 2 754.2
K 794.3 3 836.6
L 881 4 927.9
M 977.2 5 1029.2
P 1083.9 6 1141.6
Q 1202.3 7 1266.2
R 1333.5 8 1404.4
S 1479.1 9 1557.8
 
To avoid confusion from two or more aircraft using the same SELCAL code, ASRI tries to assign
code duplicates to aircraft that do not usually operate in the same region of the world or on the
same HF radio frequencies. However, aircraft commonly move between different geographical
regions and it is now routine for two aircraft with the same SELCAL code to be found flying in
the same region. Therefore, air crew always verify both SELCAL and call sign (i.e., aircraft tail
registration, or telephony designator and flight identification) to be sure their aircraft is the
intended recipient.