Medium Transport
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Troubleshooting; Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance; Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Human Factors; Airport; ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings
We were told by ground to pull up and hold short of runway 5L then monitor tower. We did. On the tower frequency for 5L; short of 5L; we could hear the tower transmissions. Tower gave us a takeoff clearance. I responded and we taxied onto the runway. After we crossed the runway hold short line; tower gave us the clearance again. I responded a second time. He then stated; I can see you moving but can't hear you and instructed to begin takeoff roll or exit the runway.We taxied off the runway without ever powering up the engines to a takeoff setting. Once clear; we switched back to ground and the radios worked fine. Ground gave us the tower freq for runway 5R and to again taxi up to and hold short of 5L. We switched and tower could now hear our transmissions. Holding short of the runway a second time another aircraft ended up with the same issue and was given a takeoff clearance; but tower could not hear their response.Tower then instructed them to change frequencies to the 5L frequency which was the inoperative frequency for transmitting to tower. I corrected tower that 119.3 was the frequency we were on when we had that same experience and suggested he advise the aircraft to switch to 127.45; the 5R frequency. The other aircraft switched frequencies and proceeded to takeoff. We waited a few minutes and then completed our takeoff and flight. Once enroute; we back tracked the digital departure ATIS and on the last page it stated to use 127.45 to contact tower. The controller was just simply transmitting on both frequencies; but only listening to one and both aircraft must have missed the NOTAM in the departure ATIS on the last page.
Air carrier First Officer reported having a problem communicating with Tower Controller at RDU because of a NOTAM'd outage of the frequency.