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Author Topic: ATIS over TeamSpeak  (Read 3206 times)

Andy Parish

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ATIS over TeamSpeak
« on: Wed, 10 Feb 2016, 16:02:32 »
The rumours are true... In their ever increasing quest for reality I was challenged at the last meeting by the "heavies" to come up with transmitted voice ATIS and, as some of you have heard, initial results are encouraging! The result could however be useful for any of the fly-in groups.

The installer for the first version of the program that generates the spoken ATIS can be downloaded here: - https://bfsg.blob.core.windows.net/bfsgatis/setup.exe. You're probably not going to need this unless you're either an Approach / Tower controller in your respective fly-ins, or are insanely curious. When you try to install, you will likely be told that the program is from an unknown publisher, and is unsafe. As I've noted before, it's going to cost some serious money to be able to get rid of those warnings.

If you intend to use this on fly-ins, you're also going to need to be able to send the output from this program to the input from TeamSpeak and to this end, you're going to need to download and install third party software to act as the glue. There's more than one solution available, but I've had success using a piece of donationware called VB-Cable available from here: - http://vb-audio.pagesperso-orange.fr/Cable/. The download link on that page is quite a long way down so don't give up scrolling". At this point it's important to point out that "donationware" is a concept where you pay the author what you think the program is worth to you. It IS fully functional to the level that we need as it comes - a donation (which it would be remiss of me not to encourage) will entitle you to two additional virtual cables.

It's a bit fiddly beyond that, especially with the setup of TeamSpeak (nothing that you can't do through the GUI, but it's beyond the basic use that we've put TS through to date) so I'll save that for later.

Pete A (G-SPCA)

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Re: ATIS over TeamSpeak
« Reply #1 on: Wed, 10 Feb 2016, 18:55:28 »
We're not worthy ;0

Nice one Andy, thanks for the hard work.
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Andy Parish

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Re: ATIS over TeamSpeak
« Reply #2 on: Wed, 10 Feb 2016, 21:18:17 »
Right then... to get this to actually work AND to let you use TeamSpeak normally you're going to need to do the following. All of this will (eventually) get into the Wiki with pictures, but if you can work this out, then you could be using it without me there tomorrow!

None of this is going to work unless you've installed the VB-Cable software (or similar). I'll assume that you're using that program in this description.

First of all, you're going to need to set up what's called a "capture profile" in TS. That's not anything new - you're using a "default one" all of the time you're using TS anyhow. Go to the "Settings" menu and then choose "Options". In the images on the left half way down there's something that looks like a microphone so select that and the tab on the right should change and say "Capture" at the top. All you'll probably see in the profiles list is "Default", but don't worry if there are more.

Click on the "+" sign in the bottom left. Give your new profile a name (mine is imaginatively called "ATIS"), and just use the Default Settings. In there, I'd suggest changing the following... Change Capture Device to "CABLE Output (VB-Audio Virtual Cable)", and "Delay releasing Push-To-Talk" to 1.0sec. Then click on OK.

Assuming that you've started TeamSpeak and connected as you usually do already (probably good to do that first), you're going to need to create a second connection to TS. Yes - you can have more than one at the same time! Click on the "Connections" menu, and then "Connect". Hopefully you'll see the settings that you use to connect to the server. All we'll change here is what we need to. Change the nickname to something that distinguishes from you (I use "Voice ATIS"). Then change the "Capture Profile" in the drop down to the one that you've just created. Finally - and this is the important bit - select "In New Tab".

And (rather unsurprisingly) a new tab should open. Move yourself to the room you want to be transmitting the ATIS in and now ignore that tab - you won't need it again. Click on the other Tab to go back to your normal spoken connection.

Now fire up BFSG Atis. Just for testing, EGGD is pre-populated for you, click on the "Lookup" button. You'll get the METAR, the name of the airport and its Lat/Lon and MagVar if all is well. For the time being, ignore the middle tab and go straight to the "Output Control" tab. You should see some text in the "Spoken Text" window. Until I've got the saving and loading of settings working, you're going to need to do the following bits every time you start the program. Change the "Monitor Device" dropdown to whatever device you normally listen to stuff on. Change the "Transmit Device" to "Cable Input (VB-Audio Virtual C" (there's a limit on the number of characters unfortunately).

If you press play (assuming you've left the "Monitor Device" radio button selected) you should hear the string in the window being read to you. Assuming it sounds like you want it to (and it probably won't) then click on that green square next to the text so it turns red and edit it - you may need to change "Wind" to "Wend" for example. Once it sounds like you want it to, click on the "Transmit Device" radio button, check the "Loop" checkbox and click "Play" and all things being well, it should start to transmit on TS3.

To test it, move yourself to the room where you're transmitting and you should hear it. If you don't - then go back to the beginning and start again!

Hope this helps. Let me know how you get on.

Andy Parish

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Re: ATIS over TeamSpeak
« Reply #3 on: Wed, 10 Feb 2016, 21:29:41 »
By the way - things that still need work (it's still version 0.1 remember).

1. Settings are not saved - you need to set it up each and every time.
2. The "Weather" box doesn't work.
3. The green and red boxes need some work (and some explanation - effectively they block the automatic propagation of data from the lookup down the chain and allow you to edit the data in case it doesn't sound right).
4. It would be nice if it was possible for an ATIS message could be playing whilst you were editing and listening the next one.
5. It would be nice if the program let you know automatically when the METAR changed!
6. It would be nice if those numbers in the boxes on the right hand side of the screen worked and let you re-order the content of the ATIS message.

You needn't worry though. As new versions are released, the way things are set up it will download and install automatically once you've completed the initial installation.

If you've got any additional suggestions, then please let me know here!
« Last Edit: Thu, 11 Feb 2016, 09:17:53 by Andy Parish »

Ollie Alderson

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Re: ATIS over TeamSpeak
« Reply #4 on: Thu, 11 Feb 2016, 07:21:38 »
Because of my voice problems, I am trying to avoid controlling, however, I will not update my computer and continue to change frequency by clicking on the required room. I can report that Andy's excellent work on our behalf in that the ATIS is readable by the same method.

I want one of her for Christmas.  8)
« Last Edit: Thu, 11 Feb 2016, 09:24:16 by Ollie Alderson »
When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return –  Leonardo da Vinci.

Andy Parish

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Re: ATIS over TeamSpeak
« Reply #5 on: Thu, 11 Feb 2016, 09:16:13 »
Ollie, you can have one of her now if you upgrade to Windows 10 - she's in the box with her American cousin.

Ollie Alderson

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Re: ATIS over TeamSpeak
« Reply #6 on: Thu, 11 Feb 2016, 09:21:21 »
You do not say whether the cousin is male or female!
When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return –  Leonardo da Vinci.

Andy Parish

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Re: ATIS over TeamSpeak
« Reply #7 on: Thu, 11 Feb 2016, 10:57:00 »
I understand that all of Microsoft's free voices are female. I spent ages looking for a male one to provide the option and a bit of diversity.

I should point out that the ATIS that people have heard when I've been testing this has been generated by Windows 10. The speech generated by Windows 7, whilst good, is not not nearly as good. I've not tried it on Windows 8 or 8.1 - is anyone still running that?

Pete A (G-SPCA)

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Re: ATIS over TeamSpeak
« Reply #8 on: Mon, 15 Feb 2016, 22:25:20 »
As Andy's already aware I had a play with this tonight. Works a treat  8) I used the VB-Cable software recommended without issue.
Pete Allnutt
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Andy Parish

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Re: ATIS over TeamSpeak
« Reply #9 on: Thu, 18 Feb 2016, 19:18:46 »
Version 0.2 has been released.

A mistake on my part means that you're going to have to start version 0.1 if you have it installed, wait a few seconds and then exit and restart. Version 0.2 will then download and start. This will also happen for the upgrade to 0.3 when it's released, but after that it will always check for, download if required, and run the latest version.

Key fixes are: -

Code: [Select]
Updates: -
#3 - Operation of the link boxes - the green / red buttons can now be used to prevent a field from being updated by changes to its parent
#5 - Notification of METAR updates - the proram will alert the user when the METAR for the most recently queried airport changes
#6 - Reorder ATIS elements - the numbered boxes on the right of the "Build Atis" tab can now be used to reorder elements of the ATIS
#10 - Show when METAR was retrieved - the date/time the program retrieved the current METAR is displayed on the status


Bug Fixes: -
#7 - Wind doesn't populate correctly if MagVar cannot be fetched
#8 - MagVar display
#9 - Checking "Check METAR Updates" after a METAR query which returns no data causes unhandled exception.
#12 - Fatal exception on exit with sound playing.

Please read the instructions in the posts above - they're there for a reason. Whilst there's a lot of automation going on in generating the voice message, human intervention is still required and I'd expect that this be the role of whomsoever publishes the ATIS these days.

Andy Parish

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Re: ATIS over TeamSpeak
« Reply #10 on: Thu, 25 Feb 2016, 21:04:40 »
And now version 0.3.

Key fixes are as follows...

Code: [Select]
Updates: -
#4 - Concurrent monitoring and transmission - you can now prepare and publish the next ATIS message without affecting transmission of the current one.
#11 - Icons - Added an icon to the application
#15 - Weather text does not get copied to output text - even though it's not populated by default any manual override should be spoken.

Bug Fixes: -
#12 - Fatal excpetion on exit with sound playing - had returned.
#13 - Support and error URLS incorrect - pointed to incorrect space on BitBucket. Also changed update behaviour to update before start.
#14 - Cloud "link" button is linked to weather output text.
#16 - Visibility where less than 1000m incorrect - 0700 was being spoken as "zero thousand seven hundred"
#19 - QNH/Altitude boxes can always be changed - now locked down and a wider issue where relinking the metar to the translated ATIS wasn't rewriting modified values

I'll be running through how to install and use the program for anyone who's interested at the Barn on Sunday.
« Last Edit: Thu, 25 Feb 2016, 21:08:05 by Andy Parish »

TimCee

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Re: ATIS over TeamSpeak
« Reply #11 on: Sun, 10 Apr 2016, 09:00:25 »
Andy, I am sorry to have missed the Barn talk on setting up the Spoken ATIS.

Good news is I have downloaded the files and am delighted to say I have set it up and it all works smoothly. 
I have even improved the phonetic spelling of Wind, Celcius and QNH  - see my "fixes" in Pic attached.

Very many thanks for all your effort in setting up this facility.
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of.  High Flight -JG Magee

Andy Parish

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Re: ATIS over TeamSpeak
« Reply #12 on: Sun, 10 Apr 2016, 17:26:25 »
Thanks for the feedback and the hints Tim.

Unfortunately, the accuracy of the spoken voice differs depending what version of Windows you're running and which voice you're using! So what works for you may not work for everyone. It would take a bit more programming to allow you to set up configurable "translations" that will always work for an individual set up, but it's an interesting idea. I'll log it as an enhancement...

I must admit to being a little bemused by why you need the word "Celsius". I listened to ATIS transmissions from both US and non-US airfields when I was writing this, and all temperatures I heard were reported in Celsius without the units being stated which is why I didn't add it automatically. Perhaps Ollie, or any of our other pilots who've flown in the US can remember? (I have, but I don't remember...)


TimCee

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Re: ATIS over TeamSpeak
« Reply #13 on: Wed, 13 Apr 2016, 21:55:01 »
Hi Andy

I am having problems logging on to TS at present I get the message "flood prevention, please try again later" see pic.  I disconnect and after two or three goes I do get on.  Any idea what might be causing this.

I was going to listen into the ATIS here in Bournemouth.  I am close enough to tune in from home to get the finer details of the ATIS transmissions here.

I thought I had added a note that my phonetics were for Anna's voice in Win 7 - I certainly take your caution about generalising it to all versions of windows
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of.  High Flight -JG Magee

Ollie Alderson

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Re: ATIS over TeamSpeak
« Reply #14 on: Thu, 14 Apr 2016, 09:54:03 »
Tim and Andy

No problems here as regards TS3.
When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return –  Leonardo da Vinci.

 

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