Don’t know the London controller but there is an American guy called Michael who I quite often have a chat with on quiet nights who works 125.55, one of the southern Lisbon sectors. He is quite commonly known amongst European pilots as ‘Good Evening Gentlemen’ as that is his standard greeting. Michael does tend to cause a bit of mayhem as he will frequently clear you direct BARLU from a point about 200 miles west os Casablanca. Later on the Spanish and French controllers will have to pick up the pieces and route you via their FIR boundaries!
Going back to HF, there really is nothing of interest on HF, just position reporting which is frequently referenced to latitude and longitude as most HF work is oceanic/Siberia/desert/etc. The other problem with HF is that there are no steady frequencies as HF uses waves bounced off the ionosphere. The ionosphere goes up and down every day so the frequencies needed vary constantly and reception is atrocious. You will also have immense difficulty receiving anything as you wo’t know what frequency they are using and you may not be in the right part of the wave to receive. It’s really not worth it when compared to VHF.
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