Radar Custom callsign

[ATC Roo]

Had a very quick try of the new ATC mode last night.
Seems to be working fine (thanks Peter) but I didn't see the custom callsign displayed.
Can this be shown again in ATC mode?

Roo

[Peter]

Hi Roo,

I'm not sure which callsign you are referring to? Do you mean the nicknames. I think when I tested it, it showed "Peter Mem" correctly on the radar screen.

Peter

[ATC Roo]

Sorry Peter,

Yes the Nicknames.
I'll try it again tonight but didn't seem to be working last night.
Roo

[Peter]

Just a thought, you need to tick the box under the nickname in order to enable it in the simulator, "Show nicknames instead of callsigns".

Peter

[ATC Roo]

Yup boxed was/is ticked.

Just tested again.
Some aircraft show the nickname on radar and some don't.
I tried both setting a registration only and an Airline callsign.
I've gone through the list of default FSX Steam aircraft and the ones that don't are listed below.
FSX will generate a random callsign for those aircraft below regardless of nickname ticked or not.

B747
B737
A321
B206
EH101
DASH8
F18
CRJ700
C208
DHC2
R22

Otherwise Nicknames or callsigns/registrations set in FSX will show on radar for all other default aircraft.
Hope that might help.

[ATC Roo]

There is a 737 circling EGLL at FL140 if you wanted to look.
Registration REGONLY
Callsign none
Flight number empty
Nickname SANTA
Client address roo.servebeer.com

[ATC Roo]

Just thinking about this.

Are you setting the registration or aircraft Callsigns for the nickname?

I've got a feeling you may be setting the reg?
I know the radar checks for a callsign and if Null displays the reg.
When I used my program a callsign had to be set otherwise FSX generated a random callsign for the AI.

Maybe setting the nick as a callsign might fix it?
And if no nick then the reg would be displayed?

No idea why it works with some and not others though.
Just a thought.

[Peter]

It is somewhat confusing using SimConnect sometimes. When I create an aircraft in the simulator is requires a 'tail number' (12 characters), and this is what you normally see as the callsign. But it also has something that you can change called 'ATC ID' which is only 10 characters. I use both of these to set the callsign of the aircraft. If there is a nickname I use that instead, otherwise i use the callsign of the aircraft. Perhaps I'm actually using these things incorrectly. I'll have to take a close look. The terminology doesn't seem consistent to me.

Peter

[ATC Roo]

ATC_ID takes the first 3 characters from the callsign and the full flight number to generate a realistic looking callsign on radar.

I'll have a play about once I get an hour spare.
It maybe my radar display being modified which is causing the issue, as what you've said you've set above seems correct to me.

[ATC Roo]

Before I start to look at this is anybody else that's reading this thread having problems seeing the Nicknames on radar?

Feel free to connect and have a look at the aircraft at Heathrow with the details above.

This would eliminate my setup.

[Peter]

I just tried connecting and I get Callsign: BOE, and ID: <blank>. So that ties in with your three letter type and airline number.

That's interesting because my recorded Cessna came up as "Peter Mem", which is the truncated nickname. I wonder if it treats IFR differently to VFR?

Peter

[Peter]

Some additional information:

My recorded Cessna which is callsign "G-MSKD", nickname "Peter Memmott", works as intended. So with 'Show nicknames instead of callsign' setting ticked, it shows "Peter Mem", when unticked it changes to G-MSKD.

[ATC Roo]

I did not even think of flight plans.
Let me get rid of the plan and restart.

Although I'm away from home at the moment so can't view a radar.

[ATC Roo]

Removing the IFR flight plan made no difference.

I know that if no Callsign and Flight number is set FSX will create one for AI, which is what is happening.

I'll experiment later creating AIs with a callsign to see if that callsign is displayed which it should be.

It looks like the FSX generated callsign is over riding the Nickname.

Can the nickname be set as a flight number as well?
Maybe that would work?

[ATC Roo]

Cracked it!
Although I'm not sure what a fix might be.

If a pilot joins the session in an aircraft that you have used in your sim, it will display on your radar as the callsign you last used with that aircraft.

For example:
The last time I flew my orbit livery 737 I used the callsign BOEING1123.
My sim will now identify any default Orbit livery 737 that joins the session as BOEING (or BOE as it only picks up the first 3 characters) regardless if nicknames is ticked.

A way around this is when a controller notices that the Nicknames are not showing for a particular model,
Open up select aircraft in FSX.
Find the model and livery.
Set the Airline Callsign to none.

You could also change the model for that player in JOINFS to a model you know has the callsign set to none.

Hope that helps those using the ATC feature.

Not sure if you can change anything in JOINFS to automatically do this Peter?
Maybe sending the Airline Callsign and Flight number, the same way you send the registration?

[ATC Roo]

Played about with this a lot last night.

I initially thought that atc_id would show the airline and number if they were set and a reg if they were not.

It doesn't, atc_id is always the reg.

I edited my radar display to only show atc_id and not the airline and Flight number and the Nicknames were always correct.


I also got around the issue of the nickname not showing on radar by opening all my aircraft .cfg files and made sure that atc_id= , atc_airline= and atc_flight_number= had nothing after them.

Quite a time consuming fix but this also worked.

Peter you mention above you set atc_id to show the nickname.
Is it possible to set atc_airline and atc_flight number instead.

My thinking behind this is that they both override the atc_id anyway.
I'm not sure if you could set 2 (or all three) so that the JoinFS nickname is definitely shown?
But it would stop any confusion when radar tells a pilot that their callsign is showing different to what the pilot has set.

If the above isnt possible (or doesnt work?) I can offer my edited radar display for use during the christmas group flight if anybody would like it.

[beneidemthepilot]

Hi, First of all, Thank you Roo for suggesting JoinFS. We're gonna start to use it over on the Seattle Virtual ATC servers for the time being, and would love to help with the development, as this is currently the most stable connection client we've tried so far.

The only major thing i've noticed on the ATC side so far is that aircraft don't appear in the "session list." I have been creating a private multiplayer session in our simulators (port 6113) and then connecting to Join FS (port 6112) to spawn in as ATC.

As far as aircraft, it appears that if the airline callsign is set to "None" then it will show up correctly, similar to how we would set up our callsigns back when gamespy was active to make callsigns show up correctly. Nicknames or flight numbers seem to not adversely affect display on ATC radar.

Thanks much Pete.

Sincerely,
Ben Eidem
ATC Student - University of North Dakota
Director of ATC - http://seattlevirtualatc.org

[Peter]

Hi Ben,

thanks for trying out JoinFS.

Roo probably has a better answer for setting up the ATC side than I do. But, have you enabled the ATC mode in the settings window, available from the File menu, and entered the ICAO for the airport? You may have already done that, but thought I'd check.

Best regards,
Peter

[ATC Roo]

Hi Ben,

I'm very busy at the moment but will get time to experiment at the weekend.

"I also got around the issue of the nickname not showing on radar by opening all my aircraft .cfg files and made sure that atc_id= , atc_airline= and atc_flight_number= had nothing after them."

Basically set one of the aircraft in your sim as above.

Then you can substitute any aircraft not showing the callsign correctly as the aircraft you know is blank in your sim.

If the pilot has an Airline and Flight Number set then they will not show correctly as Airline and Flight number are not transmitted by JoinFS at the moment.

Ask your pilots to set their callsign in the Tailnumber field and set Airline Callsign to none and leave Flight Number empty.

As for the aircraft not showing in the Session Info..
They won't in multiplayer mode.
They will with the radar opened in Freeflight mode.

It's something to do with FSX multiplayer acting differently to single player.

Maybe Peter might be able to find an answer once all his requests have calmed down.

[beneidemthepilot]

Sorry for the late reply

Yes Roo, as you suggested in the group flight the other day, and on the forum post here. Saving the multiplayer flight and then loading it to spawn as ATC in free flight fixed the issue with the session list. Its probably something to do with the built in multiplayer session overriding the joinfs session. Otherwise, I havn't had any glitches on the ATC side of things so far.

Thanks peter for the great piece of software so far, I'm looking forward to seeing what else you have coming up!