Audio problems with ATC voice

[avallillo]

Just started out with PE and I'm having a great deal of difficulty with the system. Specifically the controllers audio is so low volume that, although I can hear it when FSX is paused and the engine and ambient noises are shut off, it gets lost in the rest of the sound when all is running.

I need to be a bit more specific perhaps. I am using the LDS 767, which has its own preferences panel, but that has no effect on PE controller volume. Also the FSX sound setup page has sliders to control all of the various sounds that the sim is capable of creating, but surprisingly none of these sliders has any effect whatsoever on the sound of the sim. The only control that actually works is the basic sound item on the first drop down panel off the top line in the window - the one with a check mark by the word Sound. When that is clicked, and the check mark goes off, then the sound is shut off entirely. Nothing else has any effect on the sounds.

I have a headset plugged into the front jacks of my Dell XPS 8500, which cuts out all audio output to the speakers, and I have no control over this. The earphone portion of the headset is NOT recognized as such in the sound portion of the Windows control panel, although the microphone is; the earphone is seen as speakers, and the front jack must cut out the rear jack which the speaker system is plugged into.

The suggested setup for splitting the sound so that the ATC audio goes to the headset and the rest goes to the speakers will not work for me, since the computer does not recognize the headphone as a different item. There used to be a way to do this some years back with VATSIM and the original SB along with Win XP, but things appear to be different with Win 7 and this newer computer. And before we go any farther, I must confess that, after 30 years of FS on everything from the Atari 800 to this Dell, I can still just barely turn the Dell on - that's how little I know about computers!! 43 years of flying real airplanes, but no measurable computer skills. Que sera....... Long story short, I can't deal with anything really technical. Sorry.

Anyway, within those admittedly narrow limits, can anyone suggest a way to raise the volume of what is coming over from PE to the point where I can hear it? I decided to take the plunge with this service in order to get some practice in on IFR in the system, but in order to do that I need to be able to hear the controller!

There is another puzzling thing about what I am hearing when I connect - I was under the impression from the info on the website that the radios acted like they do in the real world; that is, when you are tuned to a frequency you hear only the traffic on that frequency. When I connect, I hear what may well be the entire PE system - controller (so far it has seemed to be the same person in different roles) talking to airplanes all over southern California and their replies. Does this mean that I may have a corrupted installation of the PE software? The PE software, by the way, seems to be just SquawkBox in a somewhat customized implementation.

Thanks in advance for the help! Hope I can get this straightened out, because the one flight I managed to get in by straining to hear the controller was really great. These controllers could give the real guys and gals at JFK a run for their money, especially in terms of reading out clearances in record time!

Tony Vallillo
Old Pilot, new PE person

[Keith Smith]

Tony, was in the middle of my email reply to you

[Keith Smith]

Tony,

I'll post the reply here because other people might benefit from it. There's a few things going on here, I'll try to address them one at a time.

There is another puzzling thing about what I am hearing when I connect - I was under the impression from the info on the website that the radios acted like they do in the real world; that is, when you are tuned to a frequency you hear only the traffic on that frequency. When I connect, I hear what may well be the entire PE system - controller (so far it has seemed to be the same person in different roles) talking to airplanes all over southern California and their replies. Does this mean that I may have a corrupted installation of the PE software? The PE software, by the way, seems to be just SquawkBox in a somewhat customized implementation.

The radio is working accurately, given that we don't have 300+ controllers working online. You're not hearing the other traffic, because they're on other frequencies. However, you're hearing the controller working those aircraft because the small number of controllers that we have online (1-3, usually) are working many, many positions. This does happen in real world all the time, with clearance, ground and tower being worked by a single controller, or multiple TRACON positions being worked by a single controller, and even tower/approach being worked by a single controller (heard this at Allentown last year for the first time). We're just doing it on a bigger scale. Here's a sample video of this happening real world at the center level: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_CNPPIdwbw (notice we don't hear a single other plane on the frequency...but we hear the controller talking to them? Same thing here, just across a wider range of positions).

Tonight, on your flight from LAX-LAS (after your post), you happened to be online where we had 3 controllers online (compared to the 1 controller you had previously). One was working combined clearance/ground for all 40 airports. Another was working combined tower for all 40 airports, and the other was working combined radar.

Regardless of the number of controllers online, you still work through a reasonable set of real world frequency changes (save for some additional departure freqs and a wider range of low/high enroute freqs).

Compare this was VATSIM's radio system. If there was a single controller working the ZLA ARTCC on VATSIM, you would be on one frequency, 125.80, for your entire flight. If there were 3 controllers on VATSIM, you might have LAX Tower, Socal Approach (combined) and LAX Center. If you executed a flight from, say, SBA to LAS...you would still just talk to one controller for the whole flight, on one frequency (125.80) for the entire flight. Contrast that with PE...if we have 3 controllers online, it's going to be the configuration I described above, unless we're doing controller training. In that instance, you'll go from SBA clnc to SBA gnd (same voice), then SBA twr (voice change), then SBA dep (voice change), then LA Center x 2 (same voice), then LAS Vegas Approach x 2 (same voice), then LAS Tower (voice change), then LAS Ground (voice change).

Onto your audio issues. There are two separate issues here:
1) it doesn't sound like you're able to address your headphones as a separate audio device to your speakers. This can be fixed by purchasing a USB headset for around $20 from Best Buy or any other electronics outlet. The USB headset will show up as its own device and you'll be able to start separating your audio if that is your desire. For what it's worth, I just have everything coming out of my speakers, but I have the engine/ambient noise quite low in X-Plane. Headsets are needed in real world because the ambient noise levels are so high. The same is not true of our home cockpits (the is a purely subjective standpoint, btw, a large % of our users want the audio in the headset).

2) in terms of adjust engine volume and the ATC volume, it does require a little bit of technical knowledge, but not much. You have to be aware of which Windows application is generating which bit of audio. At a fundamental level, the FSX application (or a plugin within FSX, in the case of a high end payware aircraft, more on that in a second) is generating the engine/ambient noise. PilotEdge (a separate application) is generating the ATC audio. Why is that important? Because now you can go to the Windows Mixer and adjust the volume of those two applications completely independently. Just click on the speaker icon in the system tray, click Mixer, and you should see a dialogue box showing the master volume for the device, and then relative volume sliders for all of your applications that are currently open. If you do this while you have PE and FSX running, you should be able to produce the desired output.

The fact that you can't tweak the engine volume by using the audio sliders within FSX tells me that the aircraft has its own audio subsystem, hence FSX's sliders won't change them. No matter, you can just use the Windows Mixer to adjust the volume of anything come out of FSX (of which the payware aircraft will almost certainly be part of), as well as PE.

I'm happy to have someone of your caliber flying here. Once you get your system set up correctly and you've processed the ongoing compromise that is our staffing configuration, I'm sure you'll be a happy camper.

[avallillo]

I'm happy to say that the problem seems to be limited to FSX - I had a perfect flight with FS9, and thus problem solved, since all of my favorite airplanes (767 and 727) are on FS9 as well.

One day I'll have to try X plane 10 also, but I'm new to that interface and it looks like it will take a while to get myself up to PilotEdge speed. For now, good old FS9 will work just fine!

Again, the controllers are superb! Nothing against the fine volunteers at the other sites, who always amazed me with their professionalism, but the limitations of the volunteer system are what they are in terms of manning. This service is well worth the small cost, and you'll see me quite often no doubt, albeit not always on the big iron, since I fly Cessna's nowadays and I need to get up to speed in that environment. Contrary to popular belief, it is just as difficult for someone with 31 years of jet flying to get proficient in single engine single pilot IFR as it would be to go the other way.

Thanks for the help and see you on the line!

Tony Vallillo

[wmburns]

FWIIW I have encountered the issue of low ATC volume under FSX and Win7. For me, the problem occurs when FSX is paused. After the pause is released, the ATC volume will be very low. If the Win7 audio mixer is opened, in my case the PilotEdge app volume would be very low relative to the others. The solution is to restore the volume slider for the PilotEdge application.

The other "fix" is to not pause FSX.

Note, I do have "pause on task switch" unchecked as recommended.

[avallillo]

I either don't have the Win7 audio mixer, or don't know where to look for it. When I open Sound in the control panel, all I see is something only shows the Realtek speakers and nowhere is there any place where any programs show up, be it PE or anything else.

Is there some other mixer that I have not located yet? This would come as no surprise, since as I indicated previously, I have spent most of the last 43 years flying rather than doing anything with computers other than using programs on them, and from the looks of things none too proficiently at that!

Tony V

[Pieces]

On the lower right hand corner of the screen (near the clock) there should be a group of icons. One will be a volume icon. If you left click on it a volume slider will pop up. At the bottom of the volume slider will be the word "Mixer". Clicking on that will take you to the mixer everyone else is referencing.

Information here: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/the-new-w ... er-control