Comm Power Circuits in Black Square Products

jmarkows

Hi Nick, hopefully things with the Caravan have settled down enough for you to give your thoughts on some of this.

jmarkows

@Black-Square Do you have any interest in looking into this?

Magenta Line

Unfortunately this issue is on the SayIntentions side. The CIRCUIT COM ON functionality is working in the Starship (and every other plane I've tried) and can be observed by watching the simvar directly, e.g. with Simvar Watcher.
But SI currently seems to be ignoring it, even when "aircraft model controls avionics power" is set to on in the experimental options. I'm pretty sure this worked before the settings were moved to the Pilot Portal, so they may have made a mistake in that process. It works in BeyondATC.

jmarkows

Interesting because for me it works perfectly in the PMDG 737, which is why I assumed one or two things weren't connected in the Black Square stuff.

Magenta Line

Now that's mysterious. So COM1 is showing greyed out or off in the SayIntentions window when loaded into the PMDG 737? I don't have any PMDG planes, but SayIntentions is always-on with every plane I've tried. I guess I should ask if you're on 2020 or 2024 as that might affect things. I'm on 2024.
Just in case I tried some FS2020 planes (In 2024) as well, but it's the same with them.

jmarkows

I'm on 2024. Maybe it only works because PMDG implements the variables to turn all Rx off, as well, and that's off by default for com1 and 2 when you load in. I typically only realize when I don't hear my copilot making radio calls.

Magenta Line

What's actually showing in the COM entries at the top of the SayIntentions window when you're in the powered-down PMDG? COM1 is a greyed out frequency number? Or it says OFF instead of a frequency?

Magenta Line

(It's a separate topic from circuit power, but the COM RECEIVE:1 variable always shows as true/1 even when a zero is sent to COM1_RECEIVE_SELECT, unlike COM RECEIVE:2 which works like you'd expect with sending 1 or 0 to COM2_RECEIVE_SELECT.
SayIntentions appears to be reading COM RECEIVE:1 (and presumably COM RECEIVE:2), since it recognizes turning off COM2 receive but always shows COM1 receive as on even when it's off, in e.g. the Starship. (There are newer (I assume, because of the EX naming) variables called COM RECEIVE EX1:1 and COM RECEIVE EX1:2 which actually do work as expected and COM RECEIVE EX1:1 turns on and off depending on sending 1 or 0 to COM1_RECEIVE_SELECT. But SI doesn't seem to be looking at that currently.))

jmarkows

@Magenta-Line said in Comm Power Circuits in Black Square Products:

What's actually showing in the COM entries at the top of the SayIntentions window when you're in the powered-down PMDG? COM1 is a greyed out frequency number? Or it says OFF instead of a frequency?

Both comm frequencies are shown. Com 1 is in green and Com 2 is in grey, however I cannot hear Com 1 (or Com 2) until the volume knob is depressed on the radio panel. Perhaps it is doing it via volume manipulation instead of turning it "off" since when the knob is depressed, with the advanced settings on I can also change the volume by rotating the knob.

I see similar behavior with vPilot in that the active TX frequency is always marked RX as well (but did not have a controller nearby to test whether I could hear anything).

hangar_101

Just adding my two cents: I’ve noticed that the SI app is forcing COM1 RECEIVE to stay ON. For example, if I switch to COM3 RECEIVE ON / COM3 MIC ON and manually turn COM1 RECEIVE OFF, after a few seconds the SI app turns COM1 RECEIVE back on again.

If I close the SI app, this behavior stops completely and only COM3 RECEIVE/MIC remains ON. So it does seem the issue is coming from the SI app after all.

Magenta Line

@jmarkows said in Comm Power Circuits in Black Square Products:

Perhaps it is doing it via volume manipulation

Ah if they set the starting volume to 0, then that'd work since that aspect is working in SI. But unless the volume gets set back to 0 when you turn the power to the radio off, SI will keep talking after you've shut down the plane. Also means SI will ignore electrical failures.

I went and tested BeyondATC a bit more. It does monitor CIRCUIT COM ON (both 1 and 2, independently): anything that breaks that (e.g. pulling a circuit breaker) will silence that radio, so that's good...but...it turns out BATC has the opposite problem from SI: it doesn't monitor the receive settings at all, whereas SI at least understands COM2 receive being off.
Of course BATC is weird regarding COM2 anyway, because it only lets you use it for ATIS/ASOS/AWOS. If you have COM2 on something other than a weather reporting frequency, it treats COM2 as off.

Magenta Line

@hangar_101 said in Comm Power Circuits in Black Square Products:

if I switch to COM3 RECEIVE ON / COM3 MIC ON and manually turn COM1 RECEIVE OFF, after a few seconds the SI app turns COM1 RECEIVE back on again.

Now that I haven't seen.
Although in the process of trying to replicate it, I found something interesting. if you turn both comm1 and comm2 receive off in the Starship, SI will show as active (green) only whichever radio is selected as the transmitter. So setting transmit to comm2 causes SI to show COM1's frequency in grey.
Looking at COM RECEIVE:1 and COM RECEIVE:2 in Simvar Watcher, sure enough, they're set to 1 if that radio is set to transmit, regardless of whether it's set to receive. So my understanding about COM RECEIVE:1 and COM RECEIVE:2 being different was incorrect; it's the transmit selection that's causing it.

~~But there doesn't seem to be an MSFS function to set transmit to com3?~~

EDIT: Alright I see now, if you send the control PILOT_TRANSMITTER_SET with a value of 2 (0 = com1, 1 = com2, so 2 is presumably com3) then SI briefly shows both com1 and com2 freqs greyed out (which made me happy for a few seconds) before automatically switching com1 receive on (though not com1 transmit). What in the world?