I used vatsim for a while 3 years ago.(Back when I was using FS2002) I had never used vatsim with fs2004 until about a month ago. I got it to work fine but noticed that the text message area on the squawkbox display was devoid of any text but my own and the controllers to me. Every time I would start it up and contact a controller the first question I am asked is are you voice enabled? Does anyone use text anymore or am I the only one? 3 years ago most people seemed to use text the most and not a lot of controllers were voice certified. I tried using a microphone then but remember I had a hard time understanding the controller over the computer speakers. Maybe because my speakers are not that good or my sound card is an old sound blaster Live. What do most people use to talk on the voice channel? headsets? Is there any way to make the sounds more clear besides cleaning out my ears?

Hello,I can only speak for the central european aera, but almost everyone uses voice in daily ATC business. I think I haven

Hi...Text for me is a great back up system...I recently did a 3 hr flight on vatsim and there was no controller at my departure airport or along my route...no problem with that...cant always have atc on every flight...so wasnt bothered about tuning avc onto anything particular. However about 20 nm from my destination a controller came online and asked me to tune to ......... ,...I could tune the radio but avc was being stubborn and would not adjust, no matter what i tried, so text saved the day for me...had good atc via text, a safe landing, and a few more hours on my VA logbook...so simply text is not dead yet.....John Calleja BAW352

Text will never die; it is still the primary form of communicating on Vatsim. Voice is just an option.Yes more and more people use voice and it would be great if we all did. But I don't think you'll ever see Vatsim drop text, like you said its a great back up to have