Some of the aircraft in MSFS 2020 are not properly maintaining the Radio Power status in SimConnect. This will result in FS-ATC-Chatter not playing chatter if you have the FS-ATC-Chatter radio power option enabled. To work around this disable the radio power option on the Radios setting page.
Please let the aircraft designer know they should fix their aircraft so that it properly maintains the SimConnect radio status.
FS-ATC-Chatter attempts to replicate the behavior of a real world air band radio. By default FS-ATC-Chatter will be using automatic controllers and radio power monitoring. That means in order to hear chatter you must be connected to the simulator, radio power on, and tuned to an ATC facility that is within 100 nautical miles of your aircraft.
If you don't hear chatter make sure that those conditions are met. Generally, FS-ATC-Chatter will give you and indication of why chatter is not playing with a short message just above the collapse button on the main window.
Aircraft must properly maintain the radio power status in the simulator if you operate with the monitor radio power option (default). Some aircraft designers might not be doing that which will lead FS-ATC-Chatter to think the radios are not powered up. If it works with the default C172 but not a particular aircraft then you should disable the radio power option is FS-ATC-Chatter on the settings page. If it starts working then run with that option disabled and report the bug to the aircraft designer.
X-ATC-Chatter and FS-ATC-Chatter have clips that are curated from LiveATC.net. Stick and Rudder Studios has a licensing agreement with LiveATC.net that needs to be renewed every two years. That agreement has been renewed multiple times and we expect that will continue to be the case. In the highly unlikely event that the agreement is not renewed, we would have to stop offering FS-ATC-Chatter and X-ATC-Chatter and would not be able to offer any further clips updates. However, you would still be able to continue to use all the clips you purchased and any clip updates even if our agreement with LiveATC.net is terminated.
FS-ATC-Chatter ships with a default COM database which is fairly accurate particularly for the U.S. and Canada. However, there is no guarantee that it will match the simulator you are using.
FS-ATC-Chatter can use a navigation database that can be created from your simulator’s scenery files using the free open source NavDataReader tool. Refer to the FS-ATC-Chatter user guide on how to create this database.
The FS-ATC-Chatter.zip file contains the player and 400 or so U.S. based clips in the Regions folder. Due to their size the purchased clips are broken up into separate zip files which you must download from your Gumroad Receipt or your Sim Market account depending on where you purchased the full clip set.
Each of those zip files will contain a Regions folder that must be merged with the demo Regions folder in the main FS-ATC-Chatter folder.
The full installation instructions with images can be found here: FS-ATC-Chatter Installation
No, the clips collection is the same between X-ATC-Chatter and FS-ATC-Chatter. If you already own X-ATC-Chatter all you need is the free player. Simply download the free demo version of FS-ATC-Chatter and copy the Regions folder from your X-ATC-Chatter installation to the FS-ATC-Chatter root folder.
No. Chatter from LiveATC.net is collected by volunteers near airports that operate Air Band radio scanners. Not every airport has a volunteer and in some cases the feed from the scanner varies in quality. Clips are collected from feeds that have reasonable reception quality and then the clips are edited to remove some of the more glaring location specific references. References to taxi-ways, runways, SIDS, STARS, etc. are not removed. You can learn more about how we collect clips on the chatter project page: Chatter Project
The current SimConnect API does not expose information about when MSFS 2020 is generating ATC audio so FS-ATC-Chatter does not know when to pause chatter. We have submitted an enhancement request to Asobo to add that capability to SimConnect so we could improve the integration.
The only difference between these two products is the stand alone chatter player. The clip collection is the same in both products. X-ATC-Chatter has a player that works with X-Plane and FS-ATC-Chatter has a player that works with FSX, FSX Steam Edition, P3D V1-5, and MSFS 2020. Either product will work with Pilot2ATC.
If you plan on using the product on both X-Plane and any of the Microsoft based simulators you only need to buy either X-ATC-Chatter or FS-ATC-Chatter based on which simulator you use the most. You can then download the free demo of either one and copy the clips from the collection you purchased to the demo player of the other product.
Unfortunately no. Current U.K. law prohibits unauthorized recording of ATC transmissions. This fact has been documented in the LiveATC.net FAQ's. For this reason the Europe clip collection contains no chatter from the U.K.
The FS-ATC-Chatter installer for the full clip collection is a fairly large EXE file, nearly 3GB. It can take Windows Defender or other anti-virus software some time to check the file before it will run and show you the End User License Agreement Dialog. Be patient, it should open in a minute or so depending on the speed of your system.
No. At this time we are only collecting clips from pilots and controllers that are speaking English. You will hear the pilot or controller's native accent as clips are collected from many different countries. The main reason we don't accept other languages is that I only speak English so I'm unable to validate if the non-English clips were properly curated by the volunteer.
If you purchased FS-ATC-Chatter from Sim Market, FlightSim.to, or the FlightSim.com store you just need to log into your store account and go to the download page for the FS-ATC-Chatter order.
If you purchased FS-ATC-Chatter here on the Stick and Rudder Studios website you would have been mailed a Gumroad receipt to your email address. That receipt contains a "View Product" link that you can use to download the product again.
If you lost your receipt you should be able to retrieve it from your Gumroad library https://gumroad.com/library if you had created one. You can also obtain a duplicate receipt here: https://gumroad.com/charge
As a last resort, Gumroad can resend your receipt. Simply contact Gumroad at Support@Gumroad.com. Please note that it may take a day to respond to your email depending on your time zone.
X-ATC-Chatter 1.7.1 or older and FS-ATC-Chatter 1.2.2 and older relied on the FTP protocol and a different update server. These older versions of the products will not work with our new dedicated update server which uses only the HTTP protocol.
Update X-ATC-Chatter and/or FS-ATC-Chatter to the latest versions to make use of the new dedicated update server. Should you continue to have problems contact us.
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