LiveATC review

This is a review of LiveATC by Sean Forehand.

You can always hear the sounds of an air traffic controller broadcasting from my cubical at work to the rest of the office.  I have always enjoyed listening to live streaming of KBOS or KJFK’s tower as I work and dreamed that one day I could hear the same chatter of real-time radio communications drowning out the Microsoft robot controllers.  Finally that day has arrived with Cielosim’s Live ATC Chatter.

Let’s start by explaining how Live ATC Chatter works.  The program gives you the ability to import live streams from websites like www.liveatc.net and use those streams in conjunction with your predefined radio frequencies of Com1 or Com 2 in FS9 and FSX.  If you would rather not stream, the program also allows you to download and import achieved streams in Wave or Mp3 format.  Live ATC Chatter also allows you to download and import as many streams as you want; however, you can only program and use 15 frequencies at any one time.  Of course, you can change the airport and frequencies at any point depending upon where you are flying or whatever listening mood you are in.  You can also use a favorites list that is included to cut down on having to reenter your frequency settings and imports of airport feeds on the changes you may make from flight to flight.  This comes in handy on those favorite flight routes you like to frequent.

For my test flight I selected KBOS as my departure airport and KPHL as the arrival.  One downside to the program that should be noted is that the program totally relies on external streams being available and active for your preferred airport.  Keep in mind you can use any active feed you want at any time. I have programmed a wide assortment of airport feeds just for headphone chatter on previous flights.

I selected KBOS to KPHL in particular because I could find the feeds at ww.liveatc.net for both my departure and arrival airports.  KBOS feeds at www.liveatac.net presented Clearance Delivery, Ground, Ramp Control, Tower, and Departure.  KPHL feeds offered were Tower and Approach.  If you frequent these websites, you will know that various feeds are often down, so you may or may not have a live feed once you get ready to load up your flight.  Live ATC Chatter has supplied a tool that will scan all your current selected feeds to ensure they are active with either a green light for up or a red light for down.  This is a nice feature and allows you to do a quick scan before heading off.  It also allots you the option of continuing your flight the way it is without using those feed frequencies, downloading and importing an archived feed, or selecting another airport feed all together.

I headed out to www.liveatc.net and downloaded the feeds I mentioned above and imported them into Live ATC Chatter.  As I imported the feeds, the program automatically assigned frequencies to the feeds.  You can change these frequencies to your liking if you wish to do so.  Live ATC Chatter also allows you to choose from Com 1 or Com 2 for your chatter feed; however, I left the setting to the default of Com 2.  Once I had the frequencies the way I wanted them, I used the print option included with the program that places all of your frequencies and descriptions in a nice table so you can print and use them for reference.

A quick scan of the frequencies yielded green on all feeds, so I was ready to place the program in start mode.  Once in start mode, Live ATC Chatter waits for FS to start and then binds your predefined frequencies.   Now that I was in the cockpit, I headed over to my radio and tuned in my Com 2 setting to 118.00 which I had selected for the KBOS Delivery feed from www.liveatc.net.  I tuned in and heard a beep followed by live streaming of chatter. Take that MS cardboard controllers!  At times you will find there can be a lot of traffic from your feeds which could cause you to pull you hair out.  If so, you can simply adjust the sound level in Live ATC Chatter to a lower setting or you can tune the Com frequency to another unused setting to act as a mute of the stream chatter.

Throughout my flight progression I adjusted the Com 2 frequency according to my location in the flight and to my predefined frequencies.  During the last leg of my flight, I tuned into KPHL’s Tower and then Approach frequency which added a great deal to the “being there” feeling.   All in all it was a great experience. Hearing live traffic come across my head phones gave me a greater sense of immersion.  I did not notice any frame rate hit or any other abnormal effect to my flight.  I will say however, on an earlier flight, I lost my feeds altogether.  After the flight I discovered that all of liveatc.net’s feeds had gone down, so I was reduced to only the sound of cardboard ATCs of MFS.  Although this only happened to me once over several flights, it should be considered along with the somewhat limited airport feeds available.  If this happens to you, or if your stream cannot be connected while in MFS, you will receive an audible notice.

In closing I would like to say I really enjoyed being able to hear real-time streaming of air traffic coming across my headphones because it added a greater sense of immersion.  The installation and documentation of the product was straight forward and easy to use and install.  The fact that I can tune in different frequencies for different feeds, scan for active feeds, import feed archives, use favorite lists, and print my selected frequency list makes the program easy to use.  On the downside, you are limited to whatever airport feeds you can find on the Internet and those real time streams being active.  For me, this is only a small setback as the program offers you the option of importing archived streams if the live stream is unavailable.  I also want to point out that I noticed the developers are very active in their forum and are quick to answer questions and offer support. If you enjoy listening to real-time feeds and want an extra touch of immersion mixed in with your flight sim, I can whole heartily recommend Live ATC Chatter,  It delivers as advertised.

Requirements

• Flight Simulator 2004 or FSX
• Windows XP or Vista
• Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0, Get it here
• FSUIPC, Get it here (Free or Pay version)
• Active internet connection when using live
• ATC streams

Thanks for visiting FlightSimX. Did you know you can subscribe to our RSS feed, which will deliver the latest flight simulator news direct to your newsreader, or sign up to our daily email summary?

• Live ATC chatter
• FlightSimX RSS Feed
• FlightSim Commander X review
• Flight Illusion releases Collins style radio modules
• Flight Simulator Blog Community