VoxATC, has anyone tired this?

[Geofa 108]

As an addendum to the comments-it would sure be nice if you could try some scenerios other than the 3 that come with the demo.I tried the vfr flight-and found it expected me to open a vfr flight plan in between ground control and tower-requesting over the FSS frequency.This seemed rather strange to me-usually can't get the FSS freq. on the ground-and I don't think I'd want to open the plan till confirmed in flight.Also-it required the word "international" before each request...e.g. "international ground, blah blah", "international tower". I don't mind minor changes or different wording, but there were definately a few wierd ones in addition to this.I also usually hit a brick wall at least at some point where the program did a "say again" 3-4 times before understanding. I tried the "emergency" and only got "say again" back-never did get my emergency request in.Again, an interesting program with lots of potential.I look forward to seeing others experiences before I consider purchase.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

[zfehr 1]

Hello Geoffrey,All those names are indexed from the FS2004 database so some of them will use longer versions than expected. I frequently fly out of Twin Oaks in Hillsboro, Oregon which is owned by Bob Stark. Since the name in FS2004 is Stark's Twin Oaks that is what I have to say with VoxATC. The developer has attempted to write a file so that most abbreviations are turned into the whole word, hence the international. The FSS procedure when you are at a non-tower airport assumes you have already telephoned FSS and opened your flight plan, which is something you can really do. I am sure that if enough people request a change to some kind of uniform system it will get implemented.If you are having trouble with recognition of some words make sure you run the flight plan trainer for the flight you are noticing the difficulty.Zane

[zfehr 1]

There is an indexing program that runs on initial installation and you have to re-run this if you add any more aircraft or scenery. Intersections, VORs and NDBs are called by name. The speed assignments are generally not given out to GA aircraft, usually faster jets and if you are hightailing it in a turboprop and I haven't noticed any relation to fixes for these speed assignments.Zane

[Geofa 108]

I only got the word "international" however. Shouldn't it have said Kansas City International (the demo airport)since that is in the database?The Fss scenerio I was speaking of was at the demo of Kansas City International-instead of opening the vfr flight plan in the air after takeoff-it was opened on the ground thru the radio -switching off ground and calling on the fss radio freq. before switching to tower-right at the takeoff position. Seems a little wierd to me...I did do the flight plan training.Most of the time the recognition works great-but there do seem to be some times of difficulty-and I could never get the emergency function to work at all.Anyway-would be nice if I could try it in a scenerio like my home airport to evaluate what it can really do.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

[Press2MECO 0]

Could anyone possibly me send me the demo file so that I may try this out, provided it's allowed? I registered last night with the intention of trying it out today, only to find out downloads were suspended. If it isn't allowed to pass this on, I understand, just was really looking to try this one out. If need be, I suppose I could wait til downloads become available again.If not a problem, you can send it to Press4MECO@aol.com

[zfehr 1]

I am not sure of which line of the airport information Tegwyn is pulling the information, I have figured out how he gets the aircraft name and it's not what the default ATC uses. That is probably why "International" is being used instead of Kansas City International, actually it might be referred to as "International" so anyone actually flying in or around pipe up if you know.This FSS scenario is probably assuming calling FSS as part of the run up, I know that the switch to tower frequency is happening from quite a distance from the hold short point so this timing problem might be making it look this way.I think that the default voice training probably should have some of the emergency wording included. An option would be to activate the voice recognition in MS Word and train through that program for some of the wording used in the emergency procedures.Hope this helps,Zane

[zfehr 1]

It's a 51.2 MB file and probably not allowed since you had to register to get access to download in the first place. Hopefully they will get their server problems handled soon, I imagine they have met with a much higher download demand than they expected.Zane

[Dirk98 354]

Does it work on a second PC via WideFS, guys?

[Guest David Lee 2]

The FSWide question is a good one since it mentions something about setup of Wide Client in the manual. Seems unlikely though.David

[Guest flyinfriend]

Hi,I am not a pilot in real life, but I play one in my free time and have been flying FS flight sim for the past 12 years at least. I Just wanted to add my two cents. I have been using VoxATC for about 4 weeks and can say that it adds so much to the immersion factor. I enjoy flying mostly GA flights around my local area of North Shore Boston MA, New Hampshire and Maine and have found that it adds greatly to the realism and the cockpit workload. The accuracy of recognition rate is probably in the high 90's percentile for me. Very little repeating of calls and readbacks. The vectoring has worked well also. Although VoxATC does not integrate with the FS AI planes the generated chatter is realistic and you wouldn't see other planes very close (hopefully) in real life any way, as was mentioned previously.The digitally generated voices are not an issue for me. After a couple of flights I honestly don't even notice them. The speech rate and pitch is varied to some degree for different frequencies and other traffic calls so you do not always hear the same voice over and over.This program adds so much to the realism of FS for me and I recommend to others to give it a try. For those who have issues with hearing the digital voices all I can say is you do get used to it to the point it doesn't really interfere with the immersion of the sim.My best to the team that developed this add on and hope they continue to develop it in the future.Regards,Tom

[Geofa 108]

Thanks for the advice.I'll probably end up getting the program-it has lots of good points-and I like to support good work!Hopefully when I get the registered version I can find out a lot more about it.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

[brucek 38]

Thanks Zane. One more question- from your real life flying perspective, is this maybe a good aid in learning ATC interaction in the real world? Thinking more ATC for instrument flight than VFR stuff. Maybe Geof has a perspective too on this?Thanks, Bruce.

[Geofa 108]

I haven't been able to try it out enough to say-there are only 3 situations to try in the non registered version.It certainly adds to realisim to actually have to talk back vs. keypresses.....http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

[michal 44]

I agree that having voice-activated ATC is such a huge leap forward that it overrides other issues (at least for me). I don't give a #### about AI which clearly are not properly integrated with the ATC yet, so until it happens it is not even an issue with me. And like someone correctly observed in real life flying you hardly ever see another aircraft around you - unless you are in close proximity to airports. I will definitely give this program a try.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

[brucek 38]

Thanks Geof.