Recommended Changes for Vatsim

[Wayne George 1224743]

Hello There! I'm pretty sure this has been said once or twice but not by me. I have been a Vatsim user since 2009. I'm not sure if anyone else would agree with me here or not but i think in order for Vatsim to be better & achieve higher numbers of new members, I would recommend these changes. Don't get me wrong, I love vatsim! I do all my IFR flying on vatsim. I just think vatsim could be better with the following changes. I think i speak for most members here that use Vatsim that the audio codec definitely needs to be improved NO DOUBT, It's very hard to hear controllers most of the time and the instructions they are giving. The second thing i think needs changing is the age requirement, Some pilots are getting really trolled on vatsim by kids and sometimes you hear 12 year olds on the frequency and it's like WOW. These are just my recommendations but i hope someone high up at Vatsim could consider this even if vatsim starts a go fund me page. I will continue to use vatsim even if these changes can't be implimented

 

Thanks!

[1275389]

Voice Codec

This has been mentioned numerous times. The current issue is that SquawkBox and FSINN are the only client that can be used with FS9. Neither are being developed nor have active developers. swift will replace these two clients if/when it gets finished. Until that point, the current Codec has to stay. Once swift supports FS9, xSquawkBox, vPilot, and ATC clients can begin the transition to a newer Codec. I honestly don't have an issue with the quality of it. I've controlled thousands of pilots and usually from the quality perspective, the issue is on the user's end. The biggest problem facing VATSIM's voice system has to do with latency, causing people to step over each other all the time. But still, not anything that can be resolved quickly.

 

Age Requirement

VATSIM already has an age requirement, 13 years old. I don't think this should change. I started young, and I know a lot of people on this network started young. The issue is not the age, but pilot quality as a whole. I've heard a middle aged man act with the same maturity I expect of a young child on frequency while trolling, and an old timer fly a plane with little to no skills, with no intent of learning. At the same time, I've seen new, young simmers looking to learn more about flying/ATC and be a hell of a lot more mature, and knowledgeable. I've seen the overall pilot quality decreasing a lot in the past few weeks, and it has little to no correlation to the age of the pilots. If anything, some of the younger pilots are more eager and willing to learn than the older ones. Why we need to add a further restriction to one that's already there, I don't know...

 

Donations - See here. The Founders' stance on this policy has not changed since.

[Randy Tyndall 1087023]

While I don't necessarily disagree with what you are saying or suggesting Wayne, I do take exception to it and I hope you understand by that I simply mean I see this differently than you. Doesn't make you wrong and me right by any means, nor vice versa.

 

I have been a member since late, late 2008 and have used FSInn almost exclusively, rarely having a blip or bloop with it. I have never, in those almost nine years had trouble understanding what another pilot or a controller was saying, even with the existing codec. Accents aside of course, but the human race has trouble with accents even when standing there in person talking to someone from another country or even region of their own country. Now, having said that, when Swift does...if ever...come out and they do switch to a different codec maybe I'll say "Wow, this is what I have been missing all these years...Wow"...maybe not. Although I have been told I am experiencing latency and distortion I cannot say it has ever impacted my flights online with other pilots or ATC. Maybe it has, I don't know?

 

As for the age requirement. Be sure that person you [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ume to be a 12-year old sneaking under the fence to watch "the game" is not a girl, young or mature (age-wise) or a guy with a naturally higher pitch/frequency voice. I made the mistake once when flying in Canada of thanking such a "12-year old" with "Thanks for the service, sir. Have a good night". Immediately got a private message, "yeah, I'm a girl, but no worries, I get that all the time." I was deeply embarr[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ed. We get so caught up in this "90% guys" thing that we forget the other (better... ) half and that is wrong because there are some very capable, p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ionate, and qualified female pilots and controllers here on VATSIM. Like Josh, I've come across guys my age (old enough to be retired) who act like a 4-year old and 13/14-year olds who acted very mature. The "must be 13" is a starting point...a gate. Once you start moving the gate where do you stop? 15? 18? Legal drinking age...in which country? You have to have a "bar", no pun intended, and for us that bar is 13 or older. I see no reason to change it.

 

I also see troubles with donations, just as the founders did. Once something is "paid for" there are expectations and demands that sometimes simply cannot be met. Keeping VATSIM free is the "only way to fly"...and control.

 

Randy

[Simon Kelsey]

Donations: some of us have seen the results of that.

[Johnny Coughlan]

Wayne, legacy client pilots(FSINN, SB3) have a louder voice on this forum and will always jump on topics like this saying they've had no problems and it must be your internet, speaker/headphone setup that is causing the trouble for you.

 

I asked for data to be posted on the retention rate of new pilots/ATC as I suspect many join, can't deal with some of the issues and then not come back.

 

No data was forthcoming.

[Randy Tyndall 1087023]

Wayne, legacy client pilots(FSINN, SB3) have a louder voice on this forum and will always jump on topics like this saying they've had no problems and it must be your internet, speaker/headphone setup that is causing the trouble for you.

 

I asked for data to be posted on the retention rate of new pilots/ATC as I suspect many join, can't deal with some of the issues and then not come back.

 

No data was forthcoming.

 

Johnny, neither Josh nor I said anywhere in our reply "...it must be your internet..." although I have seen that suggestion on other threads. I've seen the threads as well that say "comms through skype, other games, and Teamspeak are crystal clear, but VATSIM's codec is not" So please, if that was your intent, don't "throw us under the bus" until we deserve it. I honestly said I haven't noticed any issue...and I haven't. Maybe I just don't have the "discerning ear" that you and Wayne have. Maybe I just don't know any better. I don't skype, rarely play multiplayer games on my PC requiring a headset (other than VATSIM), and use Teamspeak a lot and, to me...I'll say that again, to me...I cannot tell a difference between speaking with and listening to someone on Teamspeak vs someone on VATSIM.

 

As I said, I have been told that I am "experiencing the codec issues, I just don't realize it". That's why I made my comment about Swift and the "Wow, this is what I have been missing..." comment. Right now my only comparison is to Teamspeak comms. Like I said, I and my non-discerning ear" cannot tell the difference.

 

But not once did i suggest there wasn't a codec issue. That majority say there is and majority rules. I simply pointed out that it has not impacted me in a negative manner as it seems to have impacted others. Maybe it's their internet...okay, sorry, I couldn't resist that and I meant that tongue in cheek.

 

As for legacy clients...when I joined in 2008 I had two options, FSInn and Squawkbox. I chose FSInn, read the docomeentation and install procedures before even attempting to install (and had them open reading step by step again during install), and it has been a very "successful" client...for me. I have tried Ross' vPilot, using the same protocol of reading first and then installing for install as for FSInn, and liked what I saw...and told Ross that in a post in the vPilot subforum. Three things turned me away from it. No FS2004 support (I use both FS2004 and FSX), has to be run outside FSX which means switching windows at times, no radar to see others around you without minimizing and going to addon program like VATSPY.

 

Finally, as for pilot retention, I'd be interested in that data as well, but only if it has an "age" element attached to it. I have watched my grandchildren get the "latest and greatest...everybody is playing this...can I have it" game, only to see it sitting on the desk no longer played a month later because the newest "latest and greatest...everybody is playing this...can I have it" game. If there is indeed a retention problem I suspect this mindset is a factor, lack of attention span, but that's just an old fogey talking. I cannot back that up at all except from the observation of my three grandchildren, one under and two over the age of 13. They don't read install guides, they don't read instructions, they post questions in forums the answers to which are easily found in the docomeentation provided. And yet I fully realize a "pool of three" is a very, very, very limited dataset thus the phrase..."I suspect..."

 

I'll shut up now. Old Fogey, over and out.

 

Randy

[Bradley Grafelman]

But not once did i suggest there wasn't a codec issue. That majority say there is and majority rules.

I'm not even sure I'd agree with that last statement (at least, not without a bit of clarification on the "issue"). "The squeaky wheel gets the grease", after all. There's absolutely nothing driving the members who regularly use voice successfully to come clamoring to the forums with success stories. This, of course, isn't true for those who experience some sort of problem.

 

Is the current RogerWilco setup perfectly clear? Of course not. Does it need to be (or should we even strive for that)? Of course not. It certainly has its issues (round trip latency and resiliency to packet loss would probably be my top 2 picks), but to think its clarity is simply unusable for the majority? Sorry, but I have to disagree.

 

Tune to a busy frequency with numerous pilots in a given airspace. Even if you can't understand the controller, what about everyone else? Are you hearing a clear majority of pilots on frequency asking the controller to "say again"? Or are all but the occasional few seemingly employing some sort of powerful sorcery and are somehow able to understand the instructions? From my personal experiences, it's the latter.

[Wayne George 1224743]

Yeah all of you guys are right. Vatsim has always been volunteers running it. The codec doesn't really bother me much but i thought i would make the suggestion. About the age restriction, I guess it does make sense it being 13 years old. Thanks for the replies everyone! Keep vatsimming!

[Ross Carlson]

Tune to a busy frequency with numerous pilots in a given airspace. Even if you can't understand the controller, what about everyone else? Are you hearing a clear majority of pilots on frequency asking the controller to "say again"? Or are all but the occasional few seemingly employing some sort of powerful sorcery and are somehow able to understand the instructions? From my personal experiences, it's the latter.

 

Likewise ... these days I pretty much only fly and control during events with a lot of traffic, and usually I can count the "say again" transmissions on one or two hands during a several-hour event.

 

I would, however, have to take off my socks to count the number of times people step on each other, and I'd certainly run out of toes. That's due to the latency.

[Trent Hopkinson]

Tune to a busy frequency with numerous pilots in a given airspace. Even if you can't understand the controller, what about everyone else? Are you hearing a clear majority of pilots on frequency asking the controller to "say again"? Or are all but the occasional few seemingly employing some sort of powerful sorcery and are somehow able to understand the instructions? From my personal experiences, it's the latter.

 

Likewise ... these days I pretty much only fly and control during events with a lot of traffic, and usually I can count the "say again" transmissions on one or two hands during a several-hour event.

 

I would, however, have to take off my socks to count the number of times people step on each other, and I'd certainly run out of toes. That's due to the latency.

 

My usual "Say again" events (as pilot) are due to

1: Someone getting stepped on, but not noticing (Latency)

2: Me thinking I've heard an entire instruction "Descend to 8000ft QNH1022" and "tuning my brain out" and missing the "And turn left heading ? ? 0" "after reaching BOOGI" "From that heading cleared the ILS runway 16" "call established" "random traffic pointout" "this instruction is now a novel" "Expect something else too just incase we wanted to spend 5 mintues on what was basically 1 run-on sentence" "you didn't read everything back, so I'll repeat the whole thing again, verbatim, from the top"

3: Being distracted by something else and suddenly noticing someone didn't reply to an ATC instruction... wait, -I- was that someone... What did they just say???

4: The numbers 3 and 2 sound the same. (But to be fair, this happens to me in real life too on the real world telephone to the point I now clarify with an over-pronounced "R" in Thar-Rhee. The ICAO pronounciation "Tree" and the unfortunate Australian accent that makes 2 sound like "Teeu" means that if the PTT is dropped early, 333 can sound like 2 3 E

 

So a new codec can, at best, help with 1 and maybe 4... although making sure people pronounce things correctly, and making sure they speak notsofastnobodycanunderstandbecauseallthewordsblendintogetherathighspeed could help more.

[Lennart Vedin]

Some controller/pilots has pure voice, some has not. The VATSIM protocol seams not a major issue. Maybe easiest to test different mic-settings and confirm with someone online, then keep that settings. I agree for some of controllers, one eventually need to guess the instructions, instead off repeatedly ask for repeat or text. Ending up a perfect flight with an unreadable approach make me want to disconnect, but I don't want offend some good controllers effort when the only issue is the voice quality. Nevertheless it is not too often.

[Chris Kirkman 1396980]

Likewise ... these days I pretty much only fly and control during events with a lot of traffic, and usually I can count the "say again" transmissions on one or two hands during a several-hour event.

 

I would, however, have to take off my socks to count the number of times people step on each other, and I'd certainly run out of toes. That's due to the latency.

 

Being new, I can attest to my request for "say again" being that I didn't write down the instructions fast enough, or was a little overwhelmed with the amount of info I was given. It had nothing to do with sound quality, but instead learning to think fast and understand the lingo.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[Dace Nicmane]

I made the mistake once when flying in Canada of thanking such a "12-year old" with "Thanks for the service, sir. Have a good night". Immediately got a private message, "yeah, I'm a girl, but no worries, I get that all the time." I was deeply embarr[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ed. We get so caught up in this "90% guys" thing that we forget the other (better... ) half and that is wrong because there are some very capable, p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ionate, and qualified female pilots and controllers here on VATSIM.

Thanks, Randy. It does get frustrating to get called 'sir' and it doesn't help with using voice comms.

I realize people say it to be respectful and I'm all for good manners, but perhaps it's possible to remain neutral if you're not sure about somebody's gender.