Puzzle! Can't make 'normal' PTT hear me ...

[Pete Dowson]

I've evaluated P2A in the free trial period, but I did this on my testing system, not in my cockpit. There it was fine, and enabled me to develop a display system for the "ConversationText" file now produced. In anticipation of full use on my cockpit I've purchased some decent voices and installed and tested those on the WideFS client to be used with my cockpit.

So, I've now finished (or so I thought) setting it up for my cockpit, but I'm having problems. The first, and the subject of this post, is speech recognition.

Unlike during the trial (on a different PC, but noth running Win7), I cannot get the PTT to work, either pressing it maually (when it does light up the green border), or the assigned hotkey (when it doesn't light up -- should it? Else how to I tell I've programmed it crrectly on my yoke?).

What I mean by PTT not working, nothing I say whilst it is held down is heard, as far as I can tell.

Practicing in the Grammar Help screen works, but when I first press the "Practice" button Windows pops up with this window which has to be OKayed.

WindowsPopup.jpg

Once I've done that I hat use the PTT button there and it recognises what I say without a problem. But next time I try Grammar Help, that Window pops up again.

I assume speech recognition isn't working correctly, but I've been through the installation and training from Windows a couple of times.

Thanks,
Pete

 

 

 

 

[Dave-Pilot2ATC]

Pete,

2 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

Once I've done that I hat use the PTT button there and it recognises what I say without a problem. But next time I try Grammar Help, that Window pops up again.

That pop-up window is there to aid in problem resolution.  Thanks for linking to a shot of it.  All looks good in the basic setup.  And, the fact that the speech is being recognized in the Grammar Helper indicates that the problem is not the microphone or the language setup or speech recognition engine.

2 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

Unlike during the trial (on a different PC, but noth running Win7), I cannot get the PTT to work, either pressing it maually (when it does light up the green border), or the assigned hotkey (when it doesn't light up -- should it?

Yes, if the PTT is working, then the on-screen PTT button will light up with the green border when the PTT is pressed.  The fact that it doesn't light up when pressing the yoke PTT indicates a problem in the yoke PTT setup/definition.  Since it sounds like P2A is running on a WideFS client, then I assume you've mapped the PTT HotKey, rather than a PTT Joystick Button,  to a keyboard key that is mapped via FSUIPC to the Host. 

2 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

What I mean by PTT not working, nothing I say whilst it is held down is heard, as far as I can tell.

The fact that the program is not recognizing your speech in the main program when you use the on-screen PTT button is an indication of something else being wrong.  Here are some things to check to cure that:

SWITCH SETTINGS: Check to be sure the Power indicator in the bottom left of the main P2A screen is green. If not, then you need to turn on the battery switch and avionics switch in the aircraft, or if that doesn’t turn it green, check the 2 options "Ignore Battery Switch" and "Ignore Avionics Switch" in the Config P2A Setup panel.

VALID CALL SIGN: Make sure you are using a valid call sign by changing it to the default Mfg: Beech; Tail Number: N431VB and pressing the Save Button. You can send me a screenshot of this page and I will let you know if there is a problem with the call sign.

VALID FREQUENCY: Be sure you have a valid frequency showing in the Active frequency display. Open the Radio Panel and check that the frequency selected has a valid controller assigned. Try swapping the active and standby frequencies a couple of times.

VALID PHRASES: Make sure the phrase you are using is appropriate for the controller. "Say Altimeter" should work with all controllers, so use it.

VOLUME SETTINGS: Check the Windows Volume Mixer and be sure Pilot2ATC volume is turned up. (RIght click on the speaker icon in the task bar and select Volume Mixer). Also check the volume of the voices in P2A Config. On the Communications tab of the Sound dialog, be sure "Do Nothing" is checked for when Windows detects Communications activity.

Dave

[Pete Dowson]

22 minutes ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

Yes, if the PTT is working, then the on-screen PTT button will light up with the green border when the PTT is pressed.  The fact that it doesn't light up when pressing the yoke PTT indicates a problem in the yoke PTT setup/definition.  Since it sounds like P2A is running on a WideFS client, then I assume you've mapped the PTT HotKey, rather than a PTT Joystick Button,  to a keyboard key that is mapped via FSUIPC to the Host. 

Thanks for the quick help. I’ve had to go out now but I’ll check them out tomorrow. One thing though  — on the above:

Yes, I’m using a WideFs keypress assignment for the yoke PTT button.  That’s why I was also testing using the keyboard on the PC running P2A. The assigned key presses, Ctrl+F1 and Ctrl+F2 did nothing though definitely assigned.

Pete

[krono]

Hi Pete

I hope you dont mind me chipping in. I have P2A on a network machine programed to a saitek yoke button through Spadnext. I know this is probably different to your setup since you would be using your own programs but I have to have spadnext up and running before P2A or the yoke button will not be recognised even though the green connect button lights up in P2A. Just thought you might need to check your start up sequence.

Ken

[Pete Dowson]

2 hours ago, krono said:

I hope you dont mind me chipping in. I have P2A on a network machine programed to a saitek yoke button through Spadnext. I know this is probably different to your setup since you would be using your own programs but I have to have spadnext up and running before P2A or the yoke button will not be recognised even though the green connect button lights up in P2A. Just thought you might need to check your start up sequence.

Yes, thanks. But other buttons do work fine through to WideClient on the same PC. I know that the keypress is going through.

Pete

 

 

[Pete Dowson]

17 hours ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

That pop-up window is there to aid in problem resolution.  Thanks for linking to a shot of it.  All looks good in the basic setup. 

But should it pop-up and need OK-ing every time "Practice" is selected?

17 hours ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

SWITCH SETTINGS: Check to be sure the Power indicator in the bottom left of the main P2A screen is green. If not, then you need to turn on the battery switch and avionics switch in the aircraft, or if that doesn’t turn it green, check the 2 options "Ignore Battery Switch" and "Ignore Avionics Switch" in the Config P2A Setup panel.

The Battery is certainly on (else I can't change radio frequencies etc. In fact I can't do anything! ;-)

I suppose whatever Avionics Switch offset you are checking may not be set as you expect, because there's no such switch in a B738. I'll certainly try switching those options in P2A setup.

17 hours ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

VALID CALL SIGN: Make sure you are using a valid call sign by changing it to the default Mfg: Beech; Tail Number: N431VB and pressing the Save Button. You can send me a screenshot of this page and I will let you know if there is a problem with the call sign

Would "Speedbird" followed by a number (1-4 digits) ever be an invalid call sign? If so I need to know more about how you check, because I use real world style callsigns associated with airline and flights, not specific aircraft.

17 hours ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

VALID FREQUENCY: Be sure you have a valid frequency showing in the Active frequency display. Open the Radio Panel and check that the frequency selected has a valid controller assigned. Try swapping the active and standby frequencies a couple of times.

Yes, checked and correct. Got the ATIS okay, switched over to Clearance. Got no further. The screen verified these frequencies.

18 hours ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

VALID PHRASES: Make sure the phrase you are using is appropriate for the controller. "Say Altimeter" should work with all controllers, so use it.

I will, but the phrases I tried were based on the Prractive and as shown in the little box after pressing ?

18 hours ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

VOLUME SETTINGS: Check the Windows Volume Mixer and be sure Pilot2ATC volume is turned up. (RIght click on the speaker icon in the task bar and select Volume Mixer). Also check the volume of the voices in P2A Config. On the Communications tab of the Sound dialog, be sure "Do Nothing" is checked for when Windows detects Communications activity.

The ATIS came out too loud (almost deafening) so I turned it down to a decent level. This applied to both headset and overhead (I can switch between them with a button and switch on the aft overhead).

I was expecting something to appear in the conversation text window. That remained resolutely blank, after the three blue initialisation lines.

Will do more testing this morning ...

Pete

 

[Pete Dowson]

Okay, I solved my problems. It was just that Ctrl+F1 didn't work. No Idea why. I stopped all other programs running except WideClient and Pilot2ATC, so no other program should be "grabbing" it as its own hot key. Yes still P2A didn't see it.

I'm now using just F1, F2, and I've also assigned F6* for Transponder, which I assume is for "ident". I've a question on the latter but I'll post it separately.

(*F3, F4 and F5 were already in use by my sound switcher to select headset, overhead or both.)

Pete