What to answer to the ATC request

[Guest Mik75]

Hi there!

I am getting better and comfortable with using MCE and RC4. It's really a great setup and its working quite flawlessly.

On some flights, ATC tells me to descend to FLxxx within xx miles or less.

What is the correct answer to this instruction? When I just answer "descend to FLxxx, Lufthansa XXX" or "descend to FLxxx within xx miles, Lufthansa XXX" nothing happens and ATC starts nagging! ;-)

Thanks in advance for your help...

 

Btw, I am really looking forward to MCE interfacing with the MJC Q400

[FS++ 708]

Hi there!

I am getting better and comfortable with using MCE and RC4. It's really a great setup and its working quite flawlessly.

On some flights, ATC tells me to descend to FLxxx within xx miles or less.

What is the correct answer to this instruction? When I just answer "descend to FLxxx, Lufthansa XXX" or "descend to FLxxx within xx miles, Lufthansa XXX" nothing happens and ATC starts nagging! ;-)

Thanks in advance for your help...

 

Btw, I am really looking forward to MCE interfacing with the MJC Q400

 

"descend to FLxxx, Lufthansa XXX" should do.

 

Just be aware RC4 was created many years ago, and at the time they couldn't forsee it would be interfaced via voice one day. The time the controller gives you to reply is adequate for a keyboard reply but is just about OK for voice input. So expect nagging here and there.

 

Also, be aware that while RC4 is about to start playing audio, no input will reach it until the audio has finished playing. It's all about timing.

 

We even built an anti-nagging feature, whereby when asked to contact next controller and you have just been told off (even after switching frequency), if you wish, you can talk directly to the next controller without acknowledging the nagging. MCE will automatically get rid of the nagging and convey your message to the next controller.

 

The ATC document we published is by no means complete. There are thousands of potential constructs for various messages. It would scare people off if we listed every possible variation.

 

In general, if you have a real world experience with ATC you should feel right at home without reading the manual.

If you find yourself trying unsuccessfully to transmit a particular message you think ought to be accepted, let us know and we will update the speech grammar accordingly.

[Guest Mik75]

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer! I really think that MCE + RC4 make a really good couple which comes quite close to the real deal (VATSIM, IVAO, etc.)

Having to be quick isn't a problem, but for this specific situation I couldn't find a solution. I'll try it again with "descending to FLxxx, Lufthansa xxx"

[FS++ 708]

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer! I really think that MCE + RC4 make a really good couple which comes quite close to the real deal (VATSIM, IVAO, etc.)

Having to be quick isn't a problem, but for this specific situation I couldn't find a solution. I'll try it again with "descending to FLxxx, Lufthansa xxx"

 

Since you wrote down your full name here, will send you a revised grammar file via e-mail tomorrow.

 

I believe "descend to flight XXX LufthansaXXX" or "descend flight XXX LufthansaXXX" will do for now

 

NOT "descending to flight level XXX Lufthansa" (which is a valid ATC reply)

 

You will be OK to use the last sentence once the grammar is updated. Over the years, we keep updating those grammars to make them as flexible as possible.

 

UPDATE: After checking the speech grammar I can confirm all the above variations are possible without further editing.

[Guest Mik75]

 

 

 

 

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer! I really think that MCE + RC4 make a really good couple which comes quite close to the real deal (VATSIM, IVAO, etc.)

 

Having to be quick isn't a problem, but for this specific situation I couldn't find a solution. I'll try it again with "descending to FLxxx, Lufthansa xxx"

 

 

Since you wrote down your full name here, will send you a revised grammar file via e-mail tomorrow.

 

I believe "descend to flight XXX LufthansaXXX" or "descend flight XXX LufthansaXXX" will do for now

 

NOT "descending to flight level XXX Lufthansa" (which is a valid ATC reply)

 

You will be OK to use the last sentence once the grammar is updated. Over the years, we keep updating those grammars to make them as flexible as possible.

 

UPDATE: After checking the speech grammar I can confirm all the above variations are possible without further editing.

I still have problems to acknowledge this special instruction.

During my last two flights, I had an issue with ATC not responding at all. I set up the flight, standing at the gate of my departure airport, loaded the flightplan into RC4 (window appeared in FSX) and then I fired up MCE. On both flights (MD-11, Aerosoft AAX), powering up the aircraft and doing checklists with voice interaction worked flawlessly. I could tune in ATIS, but when I tried to get the clearance, nothing happened. Only selecting the RC4 option with the keys led to success. The same happened with start & pushback and taxi clearance. I aborted these flights and on the second attempt, voice interaction with ATC worked without problems.

What could have caused this quite annoying problem?

[FS++ 708]

I still have problems to acknowledge this special instruction.

During my last two flights, I had an issue with ATC not responding at all. I set up the flight, standing at the gate of my departure airport, loaded the flightplan into RC4 (window appeared in FSX) and then I fired up MCE. On both flights (MD-11, Aerosoft AAX), powering up the aircraft and doing checklists with voice interaction worked flawlessly. I could tune in ATIS, but when I tried to get the clearance, nothing happened. Only selecting the RC4 option with the keys led to success. The same happened with start & pushback and taxi clearance. I aborted these flights and on the second attempt, voice interaction with ATC worked without problems.

What could have caused this quite annoying problem?

 

Difficult to say for sure because you run RC4 on a networked machine.

 

Under that scenario MCE has no way to determine if RC4 has already loaded flight plan and ready to run. If it doesn't find the RC4 ATC options for instance, it may revert to reading native ATC options. 

 

With the RC4 networked configuration, the assumption is...

 

 

You start FSX (Prepar3D, or FS9)

 

Load RC4, select flight plan and above all make sure you have clicked the <Start RC> button.

 

Wait until aircraft is ready to fly before starting MCE.

 

MCE is expected to pick up RC4 info within 10 seconds.

 

If things don't go as planned, before aborting the flight, try the following voice command

 

"synchronize with radar contact" or "synchronize radar contact"

[Guest Mik75]

Ok, I'll try that!

On the last flight, IFR and taxi clearance worked but after that, ATC didn't answer again. Since I always fly in full screen mode, I switched to windowed mode to have a look at the MCE control panel. All options seemed to be correct, RC4 showed up as active on the ATC tab, so I tried again. Now, still in windowed mode, ATC answered correctly. I switched back to full screen mode where everything was okay until I was passed over to approach. Again, no answer from ATC. I switched between full screen and windowed mode a few times, until finally ATC hear me again. Strange, and really very annoying...

[FS++ 708]

 

 

I still have problems to acknowledge this special instruction.

 

We provide a speech training tool which you should put to good use

 

Click Start->All Programs->Multi Crew Experience->Tools->Speech training.

 

Suggest you go though the <ATC phraseology> topic to help the system adjust to the way you speak numbers and NATO alphabet.

 

If you click the <Edit> button, you could add any problematic sentence, then train the speech engine to recognize it.

 

Just be aware, when something isn't recognised after a couple of tries it's more likely because the sentence you've spoken isn't expected in the grammar. In that case you should submit it to support(at)multicrewxp.com.

 

Thanks

Ok, I'll try that!
On the last flight, IFR and taxi clearance worked but after that, ATC didn't answer again. Since I always fly in full screen mode, I switched to windowed mode to have a look at the MCE control panel. All options seemed to be correct, RC4 showed up as active on the ATC tab, so I tried again. Now, still in windowed mode, ATC answered correctly. I switched back to full screen mode where everything was okay until I was passed over to approach. Again, no answer from ATC. I switched between full screen and windowed mode a few times, until finally ATC hear me again. Strange, and really very annoying...

 

You aren't expected to monitor the user interface. There is no button to press in order to synchronize FO with flight phase or things like that. It's mainly neded for 2 things.

 

1- To let the user set his/her preferences once in a while

2- Most importantly cannot be closed down as it needs to communicate with the sim and also receives speech engine notifications.

 

The least you see the UI, the better.

 

There are even options to completely hide it.

 

Open "mce.ini" in C:\Users\your_user_name\AppData\Roaming\Multi Crew Experience\ folder

 

Look at the [WINDOW] section. Suggest you set these as follows

 

NoActivate=1

NoSound=1

NoFullScreenDraw=1

StartToTray=1

 

Don't forget to save the file.

 

Next time you start MCE, you will only see the Splash screen. Just wait for the message "Ready to go" before you can start using it.

 

The UI will remain invisible until you right-click the tray icon and select "show control panel".

[Guest Mik75]

 

 

I still have problems to acknowledge this special instruction.

 

We provide a speech training tool which you should put to good use

 

Click Start->All Programs->Multi Crew Experience->Tools->Speech training.

 

Suggest you go though the topic to help the system adjust to the way you speak numbers and NATO alphabet.

 

If you click the button, you could add any problematic sentence, then train the speech engine to recognize it.

 

Just be aware, when something isn't recognised after a couple of tries it's more likely because the sentence you've spoken isn't expected in the grammar. In that case you should submit it to support(at)multicrewxp.com.

 

Thanks

 

Ok, I'll try that!

 

On the last flight, IFR and taxi clearance worked but after that, ATC didn't answer again. Since I always fly in full screen mode, I switched to windowed mode to have a look at the MCE control panel. All options seemed to be correct, RC4 showed up as active on the ATC tab, so I tried again. Now, still in windowed mode, ATC answered correctly. I switched back to full screen mode where everything was okay until I was passed over to approach. Again, no answer from ATC. I switched between full screen and windowed mode a few times, until finally ATC hear me again. Strange, and really very annoying...

 

 

You aren't expected to monitor the user interface. There is no button to press in order to synchronize FO with flight phase or things like that. It's mainly neded for 2 things.

 

1- To let the user set his/her preferences once in a while

2- Most importantly cannot be closed down as it needs to communicate with the sim and also receives speech engine notifications.

 

The least you see the UI, the better.

 

There are even options to completely hide it.

 

Open "mce.ini" in C:\Users\your_user_name\AppData\Roaming\Multi Crew Experience\ folder

 

Look at the [WINDOW] section. Suggest you set these as follows

 

NoActivate=1

NoSound=1

NoFullScreenDraw=1

StartToTray=1

 

Don't forget to save the file.

 

Next time you start MCE, you will only see the Splash screen. Just wait for the message "Ready to go" before you can start using it.

 

The UI will remain invisible until you right-click the tray icon and select "show control panel".

I'll add the entries to hide the control panel completely. Maybe that does the trick. I noticed that after starting MCE and returning to FSX in full screen mode, the control panel minimises automatically after a few seconds in the background and this causes my sim to toggle between desktop and FSX a few times very fast.

Concerning the speech training, I already did that three times, even with FSX's noise playing as a loop in the background. The checklists and the interaction with the copilot work very good, only ATC commands seem to cause problems...

[FS++ 708]

 

 

Concerning the speech training, I already did that three times, even with FSX's noise playing as a loop in the background. The checklists and the interaction with the copilot work very good, only ATC commands seem to cause problems...

 

Do not overdo speech training as it may lead to worst results. A couple of sessions per topic is more than enough. Even less with Windows 8, where the reco seems to work very well straight away, without training.

 

The difference between talking to FO and talking to ATC is this...

 

In order to optimise recognition ans make the thousands of available voice commands cohabit in harmony, as soon as you hold down the PTT button, all voice commands for interacting with FO are suspended and those for talking to ATC are enabled. The opposite happens when you relase the PTT switch.

 

As a result of this, you shouldn't start transmitting until the ATC speech context is ready, the hint being the continuous background humming sound. Equally, do not release the button too early, or the ATC speech context gets disabled before the ATC specific recognition has taken place.

 

Needless to say, a shaky (unreliable joystick PTT button) could cause intermittent cuts right through the transmission leading to failed recognitions.

[Guest Mik75]

Do not overdo speech training as it may lead to worst results. A couple of sessions per topic is more than enough. Even less with Windows 8, where the reco seems to work very well straight away, without training.

 

The difference between talking to FO and talking to ATC is this...

 

In order to optimise recognition ans make the thousands of available voice commands cohabit in harmony, as soon as you hold down the PTT button, all voice commands for interacting with FO are suspended and those for talking to ATC are enabled. The opposite happens when you relase the PTT switch.

 

As a result of this, you shouldn't start transmitting until the ATC speech context is ready, the hint being the continuous background humming sound. Equally, do not release the button too early, or the ATC speech context gets disabled before the ATC specific recognition has taken place.

 

Needless to say, a shaky (unreliable joystick PTT button) could cause intermittent cuts right through the transmission leading to failed recognitions.

 

 

 

Thanks for the detailed answers, Gerald!

After switching to windowed mode (it works perfectly now with my AA and vsync settings, due to Word Not Allowed´s tip here on AVSIM), which has several advantages for me during VATSIM flights etc. anyway, and adding the entries you suggested to the MCE.ini, I had 3 successful flights with perfectly interacting ATC and F/O. Very nice! MCE coupled with RC4 is really a very immersive experience.

Only the "dsesend to FLxxx, I need you down in xx miles or less"-issue is still unsolved. I treid everything, read the RC4 manual, goggled a lot, but still no joy. Its not such a big deal, since I acknowledge this instruction simply by pressing the "7" key.

The "normal" descends are no problem at all, not matter how I acknowledge, "descending to FLxxx, LHxxx", or "descend to....", it works flawlessly.

But since this is not a big downer, MCE gives me a really great time and enhances my sim experience significantly!

I am looking forward to the Dash8 Q400 support so much! ;-) Any rough time frame when this is going to happen?

[FS++ 708]

"dsesend to FLxxx, I need you down in xx miles or less"-issue is still unsolved

 

That will just require a small edit to the speech grammar file to let the speech engine expect "descend to FLxxx, in xx miles or less".

 

 

I am looking forward to the Dash8 Q400 support so much! ;-) Any rough time frame when this is going to happen?

 

I will be sending you the kit to fly the Q400 under MCE today. It's about 2 to 3 weeks away from official release.

 

Shouldn't be a problem finding your e-mail address, since your full name is displayed.

[Guest Mik75]

 

 

"dsesend to FLxxx, I need you down in xx miles or less"-issue is still unsolved

That will just require a small edit to the speech grammar file to let the speech engine expect "descend to FLxxx, in xx miles or less".

 

 

 

I am looking forward to the Dash8 Q400 support so much! ;-) Any rough time frame when this is going to happen?

I will be sending you the kit to fly the Q400 under MCE today. It's about 2 to 3 weeks away from official release.

 

Shouldn't be a problem finding your e-mail address, since your full name is displayed.

Wow, really? Thats what I call customer support! ;-) I sent you a PM with my email adress!

[starter 8]

Mik75, on 16 Jun 2013 - 12:42 PM, said:

 

 

 

 

"dsesend to FLxxx, I need you down in xx miles or less"-issue is still unsolved

 

Hi Mike,

 

I've been using rc4 with MCE for about a year now ^_^

But i got that never to work, even tried roger "callsign"

I always reply with select 7 or like you do press 7.

 

Maybe with a little editing of the speech grammar like Gerald said..... !!!!!

 

Regards John

 

Customer support here is SUPERB :biggrin:

[WR269 367]

There are some very good videos by Dave Herky showing full voice interaction between MCE and RC4, maybe they can help?