SELCAL
US/ˈsɛl.kɔl/
SELCAL noun: 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.
Noun (1)
SELCAL (countable and uncountable, plural SELCALs)
- 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.
- An alert sent via this system.
- 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...2018 February 8, Terry Liittschwager, chapter 32, in Wrongful Act, archived from the original on 23 Nov 2024
Verb (1)
SELCAL (third-person singular simple present SELCALs, present participle SELCALing, simple past and past participle SELCALed)
- To send a SELCAL alert to (an aircraft).
- 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...2018 February 8, Terry Liittschwager, chapter 32, in Wrongful Act, archived from the original on 23 Nov 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.
Noun (2) capitalized: SelCal
SelCal (countable and uncountable, plural SelCals)
- Alternative form of SELCAL.
Verb (2) capitalized: SelCal
SelCal (third-person singular simple present SelCals, present participle SelCaling, simple past and past participle SelCaled)
- Alternative form of SELCAL.
Forms of SELCAL
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | SELCALs |
| alternative form | SelCal |
| plural | SelCals |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | SELCALs |
| present participle | SELCALing |
| past participle | SELCALed |
| past | SELCALed |
| third-person singular present | SelCals |
| present participle | SelCaling |
| past participle | SelCaled |
| past | SelCaled |
Origin of SELCAL
Blend of selective + calling.
Questions about SELCAL
- What does SELCAL mean?
- SELCAL means 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.
- What part of speech is SELCAL?
- SELCAL can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce SELCAL?
- SELCAL is pronounced /ˈsɛl.kɔl/ (US).
- What is the plural of SELCAL?
- The plural of SELCAL is SELCALs.
Words near SELCAL in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: SELCAL (page history and authors); SelCal (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “SELCAL.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/selcal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.