I have been flying FS9 on the same platform for the past 6 years. Recently, I chose to go flying and could not communicate with ATC. I can manually tune the radios, yet there seems to be no way to bring up choices on the ATC window. It opens up and is empty. I can hear and read traffic from others, Tower, Ground control, other aircraft, and ATIS, yet I have no way to transmit to anyone. I haven't yet tried an IFR flight plan with this problem so I don't know if I would be receiving instructions along my route even though I can not respond. Does anyone have ideas on how to fix this.

 

Yes, I did a complete uninstall/re-install when this first appeared. I generally fly out of a very quiet airfield, so even though it is a towered airport, I treat it as an uncontrolled field and just go flying.

 

I also went through the first 10 pages of this forum looking for this very question before starting this post.

 

Anyone's help with this will be greatly appreciated as it is very frustrating to not be able to use the full capabilities of the program.

 

Thank you all in advance.

Have you tried removing the FS9.cfg file from (typically) :C:\Documents and Settings\your user name here\Application Data\Microsoft\FS9 ( this from a windows XP system) and starting up FS9 so that it would create a new FS9.cfg file? I should remind you that when you did the uninstall of FS9 if you didn't manually remove any left behind files then you may have kept the very problem you were trying to fix.

 

Do you have FS9 updated to FS9.1? What operating system are you using?

 

Regards,

Mel

Wow!

 

..that's an odd one!

 

When to Sim is fully loaded, and you press the default "apostrophe key", the "Air Traffic Control" transparent window should appear in the centre of the screen, with various text commands waiting to be responded to.

 

Does this not happen any more?

 

Very strange. I've not had that happen, out of the blue, before!

 

Paul.... :huh: ...!

 

Note: If you are using Multiplayer, then default ATC communication is completely disabled in FS 2004.

Have you got a pilot voice selected?

Check your ATC settings in FS9.

This smacks of a 'weird things that FS9 sometimes does randomly ,and for no good reason'

Andy

Hi.

 

I'll add my question too. Stupid one, I know, but have you switched the avionics on? I can imagine some (buggy) planes have a radio that looks as though it's working even though the avionics switch is 'off'.

 

D

Dear Mel, Paul, Andy, and Dave,

 

Thank you for your responses to my difficulty. Mel, deleting the config file and restarting FS9 did the trick. Thank you, I had forgotten about that.

 

Thank you all for your responses. Happy flying! Keep the pointy end forward, and may the wind always be at your Six.

 

Best Regards,

 

Dick Goller

Dear Mel, Paul, Andy, and Dave,

 

Thank you for your responses to my difficulty. Mel, deleting the config file and restarting FS9 did the trick. Thank you, I had forgotten about that.

 

Thank you all for your responses. Happy flying! Keep the pointy end forward, and may the wind always be at your Six.

 

Best Regards,

 

Dick Goller

 

..invariably the case, mostly by accident, after 60 years of age, and weak contracting muscles!... :blush: ...!

 

Paul...similar problems at 78... :unsure: .... :lol: ....!

FWIW I recall an FS setting to enable the ATC window. That might have been turned off. Anyway renewing FS9.cfg resets to defaults. Have fun reentering all of your settings. What I do is the rename fs9.cfg, let FS generte a new one, and then copy\paste from old to new sections of interest that were not giving me a problem. It saves a lot of work.

Thank you for all your good input, and after thinking that letting FS9 generate a new config file had fixed the problem, it has returned and the config file fix is no longer working. Any other ideas I might try? Is there somewhere I can get information on all the entries in the config file and what they do and how they interact with FS9 and the OS?

 

Looking forward to more communication with all of you!

 

Best regards,

Dick Goller

[ATC]

AutoOpenAirTrafficWindow=1

UsePilotVoice=1

ShowATCText=0

PilotVoice=1

 

[KEYBOARD_MAIN]

ATC=186,9

 

Are I would think the are main settings in FS9.cfg for your problem. I think ShowATCText is displayed ATC dialog. Keyboard_MAIN

ATC=186,9

is the key assignment to bring up the menu and for me shows as shift + ; in the fs9 assignments setup. Use the fs9 settings assignment menu to check that. Check any add-ons that might "steal" that assignment and resolve the settings between them so there are different.

Thank you Ronzie,

 

I'll give that a try when I get home tonight. In the meantime, here is some more information about the problem. Both the ATC and the FLYING TIPS windows pop up as they should, both without any messages or menus inside. Also, when the parking brake is on all I see on my monitor is a red bar in the lower left corner. No included type stating that the red bar is because the parking brake is on as formerly.

 

Thank you again for your help. I'll let you know if this works. If the new information I have provided triggers any thoughts on other things to look at, please let me know.

 

May your ceilings always be unlimited and the wind always at your Six!

 

Dick Goller

Any chance you might have lost your system font in Win? Check the setup. Also check your DX version. Run in a dos win or enter dxdiag.exe in the run command.

 

After that I'd clean and reinstall your video drivers for your card.

 

If you run FS standalone with only a default aircraft and nothing else after resetting FS9.cfg again, your text should return, correct?. Then start running add-ons until the problem shows up.

 

I did not find anything in FS9.cfg regarding text or font settings other than those in my previous reply. Compare a good default copy of fs9.cfg (save it in a safe folder outside of your documents area and outside of FS9) to use as a reference. When you have the problem compare the display sections of FS9.cfg (it is your hardware settings) to another section.

 

Look for anything that fiddles with your default video driver settings including default win fonts (usually system font).

 

When you have the problem compare the following section example in your "good" refreshed fs9.cfg to the one after your problem starts:

 

[DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT.0]

Mode=1280x800x32

RenderToTexture=0

//PanelAsTexture=0

TriLinear=1

MipBias=5

 

If you are running an Nvidia display and you are using Nvidia inspector check settings in that.

 

Hardware wise insure you have enough ram especially if using motherboard video chips, not a separate card. Your FS9.cfg settings regarding lights, reflections, shadows, etc. as set in your FS9 hardware settings determine how much ram is used for rendering these details. If your problem occurs after adjusting these then you have a video driver or ram starvation problem.

 

All I can think of right now.