Lost Communications Sunday evening

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scottcame
Posts: 32
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2011 3:22 pm
Location: KOLM (Olympia, Washington, USA)
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Lost Communications Sunday evening

Post by scottcame »

I was IFR this evening, KDAG-KONT. Had no issues until about halfway between the Hector and Paradise VORs...I got to the point where I thought I should have had clearance for lower, and hadn't heard from SoCal for awhile, so I called for a radio check. No response. I was pretty close to KONT by that time, so I tuned in the SoCal frequency listed on the approach chart, and no response there either.

I was in VMC and still outside the LA Bravo, and had the field in sight, so I just squawked 1200 (maybe should've been 7600?), switched to the KONT tower frequency, and made the usual advisory position reports all the way to an uneventful landing. After landing, I saw another aircraft taxiing, so I was still connected. But no comms (at least on the receiving side.) 99% sure my equipment is working fine.

Apologies to the controller (Eugene, I think) and anyone else, if I was still on radar and visible to other pilots but possibly not transmitting and definitely not hearing.

--Scott
Scott Came
P/E: N118SC (C172) or N400SC (COL4)
R/W: Private Pilot, ASEL, KOLM (Olympia, Washington, USA)
Keith Smith
Posts: 9939
Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2010 8:38 pm
Location: Pompton Plains, NJ
Contact:

Re: Lost Communications Sunday evening

Post by Keith Smith »

Scott,

Good to know. Let's see if we can track down what happened. What simulator were you using? If it was X-Plane, and if you haven't fired the sim up since that time, can you PM me the contents of the vspro.out file in your Xplane root directory?
scottcame
Posts: 32
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2011 3:22 pm
Location: KOLM (Olympia, Washington, USA)
Contact:

Re: Lost Communications Sunday evening

Post by scottcame »

Yep it was X-Plane and I will send the log file via PM tomorrow. Thanks.
Scott Came
P/E: N118SC (C172) or N400SC (COL4)
R/W: Private Pilot, ASEL, KOLM (Olympia, Washington, USA)
Keith Smith
Posts: 9939
Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2010 8:38 pm
Location: Pompton Plains, NJ
Contact:

Re: Lost Communications Sunday evening

Post by Keith Smith »

Got it, thanks. I don't see any debug output in the log file pointing to a conscious attempt by the plugin to shut down your voice (such as an alternator/generator failure resulting in a drained battery, or a bus failure, or a com1 radio failure, all of which we check for).

The only possibility that springs to mind is that the connection to the voice server was disrupted while your connection to the data server remained in tact (as evidenced by the fact that you continued to see traffic updates as you arrived, and that you were still listed on the web site, presumably).

I was not online to diagnose in real time, so I can't confirm that, however, I have seen this happen 2-3 times in the past 12 months. Ultimately, we'd like to trap that case, obviously, and have the voice library reconnect to the server transparently, or at least provide a debugging message to explain what has happened.

Should that happen again (that you lose voice but remain connected to the data server), don't be shy about disconnecting/reconnecting to see if that rectifies it.

Keith
scottcame
Posts: 32
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2011 3:22 pm
Location: KOLM (Olympia, Washington, USA)
Contact:

Re: Lost Communications Sunday evening

Post by scottcame »

OK will do! Thanks for the explanation.
Scott Came
P/E: N118SC (C172) or N400SC (COL4)
R/W: Private Pilot, ASEL, KOLM (Olympia, Washington, USA)
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