I'll see if I can help with the heading, then departure issue. At CLT we have a noise abatement restriction that requires departures to fly 2 miles when departing 18L or 18C before we are able to turn you. We have a waiver that allows us to depart side-by-side for that 2 miles IMC or VMC and then issue turns to gain standard separation (i.e. at least 15 degree divergence) from the parallel departure. Also, we have an Arrival/Departure Window (ADW) that requires us to have aircraft physically rolling on 18C before the 23 arrival crosses a point 1.8 miles from the 23 threshold. Factor in RWY crossings to get arrivals from 18R to the ramp, any 18C arrivals inbound, and any other nonroutine tasks going on and there isn't time to talk to all of those on time every time. We issue the turn Then contact departure so that we can essentially get 2 transmissions done in one. We need to have you on the TWR frequency until the turn to heading 240 to comply with our waiver, at which point we have our divergence from the 18L departure, and you can then talk to departure. If you are issued just a heading and contact departure without the, Then, it's because either there isn't a 18L departure next to you or the 18L departure has already been turned. Hope that clears up some of the questions. As far as getting yelled at by "the lady on 126.4", I can't help there. Some people just need work on their people skills, and that goes on both sides of the frequency.
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