Audio Problems

[SladeEvans]

Beg pardon if I'm posting in the wrong place I'm pretty new to the service.

For the last month or so I've been having a real hard time with the "radio" quality on PE. Voices start getting robotic and transmissions have to be repeated which is pretty frustrating for those trying to copy instructions and makes it harder for others to get on the radio. On several occasions I've given up and just disconnected to finish my flights offline. It seems to happen every time I try to use the network lately. Am I just unlucky or is this an ongoing issue? I really want to get more use out of the service but I'm pretty frustrated. Today was my attempt at the CAT-2 and I gave up 8 miles east of San Luis, unable to contact the tower.

On a related note, what's the procedure I should be following? If I can't get on the radio to make a tower call do I just make up a holding pattern until the radio clears up?

[Keith Smith]

I would listen to the recordings for the time that you flew to see if the poor quality was captured there. That will tell us where the audio issue lies.

It's unclear what the issue was on your cat2, but if you weren't hearing any audio at all, reconnecting might be worth a try. Was that the symptom or was something else going on?

In terms of a flight path, remaining outside the delta is the correct procedure and is good practice.

[SladeEvans]

Thanks for the reply, Keith. I'll go check the recordings. The audio was coming through but was very distorted. The best way I can describe it is robotic. I heard at least two other pilots on tower frequency having the same problem. By the way, the controller (I don't know how to tell who it was) did a great job working the radios and said he was also having difficulty with the audio. My post shouldn't be considered a complaint about their service or performance.

Edit: I found some of the robotic choppiness but it sounds mostly clear on the recording. Maybe it sounded worse at the time because of anxiety http://assets.pilotedge.net/recordings/ ... _17510.mp3

[Keith Smith]

Looking through the controller notes from yesterday, one controller did actually report audio issues for a 30-45 minute period. I'll try to find out what might have been happening.

[wmburns]

What is your operating system? Are your headphones USB or analog attached?

IF USB attached to a Windows PC in my experience the robotic "tin"ey sound is either from dropped packets are mismatched digital audio sampling rates. For me the problem sometimes occurs on Skype and listening to youtube videos. In my case what works around the issue is to either re-boot or unplug and re-plug the USB head sets. Bear in mind that doing this while connected to PE is likely to cause problems of their own.

What I have also noted that for my system I'm more likely to encounter the problem when the PC has been up for a very long time and it has been brought in/out of sleep many times. Hence the reason for the re-boot.

My suggestion is to try re-booting your system just before connecting to PE. If the problem persists THEN suggest trying different CD sampling rates on the USB device properties page.

IF your headset is analog attached then consider checking your mother board's web site to see if there are updated analog drivers.

If the sound is choppy with the sound broken up with silence this is caused by dropped UDP packets or excessive "jitter" in the network.

EDIT: Listening to the audio recordings I heard what sounded like to me:

• over modulated mic. one pilot likely could be heard better if the mic volume were turned down.
• Another pilot was using the built in web cam mic (sounded like in a barrel). Often easier to get better results with a close mouthed mic.
• Choppy sounds often associated with UDP packet loss.

I have a lot of experience with communicating with an elderly parent with hearing "issues". One of the lessons I have learned is that there is a BIG different in audio quality between headsets. For people with "normal" hearing the cheap headsets often work well enough. But for someone with very poor hearing (or when the internet connection is poor), the better quality headsets with a close mouthed mic will give better results. This goes DOUBLE during "marginal" system conditions.