Open Mic Incident & Resolution

[William Johnston]

Hey All - 

Had an open mic incident earlier today at Gatwick and wanted to share the cause and resolution as a contribution to the community.

Background - Got back into flight sim when FS20 dropped, migrated to X Plane exclusively. Apx 300 hours since August 2020, 5 flights on VATSIM. For my rig I use a flight stick, M&K for some cockpit actions, and Streamdeck configured as a flight panel - see attachment - works great and highly recommended.

Got a text from Gatwick Clearance Delivery I had an open mic. I use PTT via L CTRL, so I confirmed nothing was pressing the key and texted same to Gatwick assuming either mic had been open but resolved itself after they sent text, or text was sent to me in error. A minute later I received another text indicating open mic and I immediately DCd as that seemed the fastest way to resolve the issue for other people on the service.

What I found was, when I had configured Streamdeck I used key combos plus letter for various functions. Some of those functions were hotkey switch rather than hotkey, and the culprit was L CTRL + h for heading select, both press and release. Once I had touched that key on the button box it was essentially staying pressed, even when I 'released' it via a second press. This was my setup for some time and I'd forgotten all the key combos I'd used. Prior to using xPilot it hadn't been an issue because, well, no possibility of an open mic.

Lesson learned. Double check that none of your  xPilot settings conflict with current in game or third party key commands, as some of them are sort of hidden.

Cheers - 

- W

[Ross Carlson]

2 hours ago, William Johnston said:

M&K for some cockpit actions

What is M&K?

[Andreas Fuchs]

Hi William,

thanks for sharing! For realism I highly recommend to not configure your PTT to use any key on your keyboard, but rather a push-button on your joystick/yoke only.

[William Johnston]

1 hour ago, Ross Carlson said:

What is M&K?

Mouse and keyboard

[Ross Carlson]

1 hour ago, William Johnston said:

Mouse and keyboard

Haha okay ... I thought maybe you were referring to some software or hardware product. 

[Ben Lim]

On 1/15/2021 at 9:58 AM, Ross Carlson said:

Haha okay ... I thought maybe you were referring to some software or hardware product. 

Hi Ross - as you are also a user of ProSim what would be your recommendations to assign PTT for use with Vpilot? 

There is no way to individually assign captain, and FO PTT - would you suggest using an FSUIPC offset (does one exist for PTT?) or common binding the PTT buttons to one keyboard command? 

Thank you.

[Ross Carlson]

57 minutes ago, Ben Lim said:

Hi Ross - as you are also a user of ProSim what would be your recommendations to assign PTT for use with Vpilot? 

There is no way to individually assign captain, and FO PTT - would you suggest using an FSUIPC offset (does one exist for PTT?) or common binding the PTT buttons to one keyboard command? 

I'm not actually a ProSim user anymore. I wanted to switch to a 777 sim, so I now use a JetMax 777 with Sim-Avionics for the software.

Not that that changes anything with respect to PTT assignments. :D I use a yoke button myself, but my sim is a single-seater.

Since there is no FSUIPC offset for PTT, I think your only options are to bind two buttons to the same keyboard key, or maybe a custom solution with a USB driver board where both buttons are mapped to the same button number on the card. (Wire the two buttons in parallel ... never tried this, but I assume it would work.)

[Ben Lim]

1 hour ago, Ross Carlson said:

I'm not actually a ProSim user anymore. I wanted to switch to a 777 sim, so I now use a JetMax 777 with Sim-Avionics for the software.

Not that that changes anything with respect to PTT assignments. 😄 I use a yoke button myself, but my sim is a single-seater.

Since there is no FSUIPC offset for PTT, I think your only options are to bind two buttons to the same keyboard key, or maybe a custom solution with a USB driver board where both buttons are mapped to the same button number on the card. (Wire the two buttons in parallel ... never tried this, but I assume it would work.)

Very cool, thanks Ross, will give it a go.

I tried out a Level-D 777 sim a few years ago - it was super - 

Even had a birdstrike simulation and that was fascinating.

 

[Torben Andersen]

9 hours ago, Ben Lim said:

Hi Ross - as you are also a user of ProSim what would be your recommendations to assign PTT for use with Vpilot? 

There is no way to individually assign captain, and FO PTT - would you suggest using an FSUIPC offset (does one exist for PTT?) or common binding the PTT buttons to one keyboard command? 

Thank you.

If you search the prosim forum for 'ptt' I think you'll find a solution. I'm using an ACE yoke and have no problems using the mic button on the cap. side. (No first office in my cockpit).

[ShengTang Zhao]

I also just had an incident also at Gatwick. Upon learning that I had open mic, I quickly disconnected from VATSIM and unbound my push to talk button on my pilot client (vpilot) to attempt to resolve the problem. I reconnect, but Gatwick ground and all the traffic on Gatwick ground was all still letting me know that I still have open mic. I also don't have my push to talk button bound to anything on my sim (MSFS) I made sure using search by input.

I would have to guess it was a bug in the pilot client then.

Also speaking of bugs with vpilot, i wonder if this has ever happened to any of you: occasionally, some transmissions would ramp up in volume very quickly and blast your eardrums, then be completely fine in the next transmission.

[Andreas Fuchs]

Hi, what button or key are you using as PTT?

[Robert Shearman Jr]

18 hours ago, ShengTang Zhao said:

occasionally, some transmissions would ramp up in volume very quickly and blast your eardrums, then be completely fine in the next transmission.

 

[Andrew Crowley]

On 1/14/2021 at 12:02 PM, Andreas Fuchs said:

For realism I highly recommend to not configure your PTT to use any key on your keyboard, but rather a push-button on your joystick/yoke only.

Not sure this is a fair statement.  Most airliners have PTTs on the glareshield or center counsel in addition to the yoke, and many have all three.  It's courtesy that if the PF is handflying, the PM use a different PTT so as not to exert any pressure on the yoke.

[Andreas Fuchs]

12 hours ago, Andrew Crowley said:

Not sure this is a fair statement.  Most airliners have PTTs on the glareshield or center counsel in addition to the yoke, and many have all three.  It's courtesy that if the PF is handflying, the PM use a different PTT so as not to exert any pressure on the yoke.

That's not what I meant. My real plane also has two PTTs on each side of the flightdeck: one on either yoke and the other one on either CCD (cursor control device = trackball controller) located on the center pedestal.

The point that I was trying to make is that I see a lot of virtual pilots here who ONLY have a PTT defined on their computer keyboards, which is not recommended, because for phases or flight where you got both hands busy with steering the plane and controlling the throttles, you will get distracted from your number one priority "fly the plane" when reaching over to your computer keyboard to reply to a radio call. Since most pilots here will be using the one hand to hold their yokes/joysticks, the primary PTT should be defined as a button that can be pressed easily with the hand used to hold your yoke/stick.

I'm using a Honeycomb Alpha Yoke and the intended PTT button is this one on the white button on the back of the left side of it. It can be used easily with your left index finger.

Edited January 22, 2023 at 11:00 AM by Andreas Fuchs

[Lauri Uusitalo]

23 hours ago, Andreas Fuchs said:

The point that I was trying to make is that I see a lot of virtual pilots here who ONLY have a PTT defined on their computer keyboards, which is not recommended, because for phases or flight where you got both hands busy with steering the plane and controlling the throttles, you will get distracted from your number one priority "fly the plane" when reaching over to your computer keyboard to reply to a radio call.

And at least in x-plane keyboard PTT only works if x-plane window has the focus. So if you have e.g. opened charts on secondary screen and click there, the PTT does not work. Only if it is assigned to external controller like joystick button does it work anytime.

[Andreas Fuchs]

40 minutes ago, Lauri Uusitalo said:

And at least in x-plane keyboard PTT only works if x-plane window has the focus.

I was not aware of this. Is this specific to xPilot or does it happen in swift as well? I should test it at some point...

[Lauri Uusitalo]

18 hours ago, Andreas Fuchs said:

I was not aware of this. Is this specific to xPilot or does it happen in swift as well? I should test it at some point...

I would say it is more of a OS thing. Otherwise it would be difficult to do anything else during the flight. Everytime you pressed P the x-plane would pause...

Edited January 24, 2023 at 05:53 AM by Lauri Uusitalo