Why don't they simply ask you to ident? I'm thinking maybe the mode C
wasn't working and they wanted him to recycle is transponder.

"Dave Stadt" writes:

Happens 'round here all the time. He sees a 1200 squawk and thinks it is
you. You go to stand-by and you disappear from radar. He now knows it is
you when you squawk 1200 again. Seems to always happen at Class D airports.
Can they assign unique Xponder codes? Seems to me they can't.