Multiple Frequency Monitoring on FGCom

[Ozgur]

I posted this to some other thread but it was too much out of topic so i moved here. This is not a feature, lets say new favour!

Well...A small hack for FGCom for multiple frequency monitoring. This hack is not suitable for minors since this can easily mess up the things. This is just a quick and dirty method and doesn't provide long term solutions. But it's still good! (Just tested at EDDF and working)
What it does: It allows multiple instance of FGCom to
1)Monitor and transmit on selected NAV1 frequency.
2)Just monitor the selected NAV2 frequency (as in real life ha!)

What to do.
1)First, go to your FlightGear/Data/Protocol Folder and just make an exact copy of fgcom.xml (e.g. copy paste to same folder)
2)Rename this copy file as fgcom2.xml (or whatever but remember the name)
3)On windows, right click on fgcom2.xml to open the file to edit. (Wordpad works ok if you see weird text)
4) Find the following code on 24th -25th line of the code (just after beginning)

Code: Select all

   <chunk>
    <name>com1frq</name>
    <type>float</type>
    <format>COM1_FRQ=%03.3f</format>
    <node>/instrumentation/comm/frequencies/selected-mhz</node>
   </chunk>

   <chunk>
    <name>com1-serviceable</name>
    <type>bool</type>
    <format>COM1_SRV=%d</format>
    <node>/instrumentation/comm/serviceable</node>
   </chunk>


6) And change the

Code: Select all

...
<node>/instrumentation/comm/frequencies/selected-mhz</node>
...

to

Code: Select all

<node><node>/instrumentation/comm[1]/frequencies/selected-mhz</node>


7) And on the 36th line of file find this:

Code: Select all

...
<node>/instrumentation/comm/serviceable</node>
...


And change to

Code: Select all

<node>/instrumentation/comm[1]/serviceable</node>


8) On 42nd line of file find this

Code: Select all

...
<node>/instrumentation/comm[1]/frequencies/selected-mhz</node>
...


and change into

Code: Select all

<node>/instrumentation/comm/frequencies/selected-mhz</node>


9) And on the 49th line of code spot this

Code: Select all

<node>/instrumentation/comm[1]/serviceable</node>


and change into

Code: Select all

<node>/instrumentation/comm/serviceable</node>


Well, what we did until now is to tell FlightGear to send 2nd COM frequencies to FGCom, instead of COM1. And the most important part comes if you don't want to be ashamed in the whole EDDF area.


10) Find the 84th line of the code and that area that is

Code: Select all

   <chunk>
    <name>ptt-key-status</name>
    <type>int</type>
    <format>PTT=%d</format>
    <node>/instrumentation/comm/ptt</node>
   </chunk>


And replace it with

Code: Select all

   <chunk>
    <name>ptt-key-status</name>
    <type>int</type>
    <format>PTT=0</format>
    <node>/instrumentation/comm/ptt</node>
   </chunk>


So the change is PTT=%d to PTT=0 and never ask why, just do it.
11)Save your file and close.

Or alternatively you can download a copy of the file edited already by clicking here and copying to your FlightGear/Data/Protocol folder

12) Now, go to your fgcom folder, where you downloaded it from Jomo's link. And double click on fgcomgui.exe and let it run. Again, double click and open a second instance of fgcomgui.exe.
13) (What you will do is just to change one of the fgcom local port from 16661 to 16662, for details please refer to fgcom manuals and pages since this message looks like flooding the forum).
14) Start both of the fgcoms in normal mode and make sure in the command line you spot 16661 in one fgcom window and 16662 in second one. Every time you stop and restart the fgcom they will switch to 16661 by fgcom gui defaults. If you see 16661 on both windows, stop only one and correct port and start again.(A command line is also possible but, lets not mess with it now)
15) Start fgrun. Go to advanced settings>Input Output. And if you were using fgcom before you should see a line like

Code: Select all

 --generic=socket,out,10,localhost,16661,udp,fgcom


16) Now click on new i/o and make sure you enter 16662 as port number and make sure you select your "modified" fgcom2.xml file by selecting the protocol file. (for this procedure you can always see fgcom manuals included in the same folder)
17) Click ok in adv. settings and double check you can see the lines below on your command line of FGRun

Code: Select all

 --generic=socket,out,10,localhost,16661,udp,fgcom
 --generic=socket,out,10,localhost,16662,udp,fgcom2


18)Start your FlightGear and use the frequencies you want to use. In this case (EDDF), it is advised to use

NAV1= 127.320 Mhz (For transmission purposes)

NAV1 (Passive)= 121.800 Mhz (For transmission purposes)

NAV2 (selected)=121.900 Mhz. (For monitoring purposes)

19)Do not to use same selected frq for NAV1 and NAV2 since you'll end up hearing your own voice and causing echo when you try to transmit.

20) You might want to decrease volume in NAV2 frq from FGCom since it might be unintelligible if you hear both. Or if there are fancy options in your soundcard/OS you can assign one channel to left and the other to the right speaker (hmmm...Would be nice...)

This was long...


EDIT: The proof:

[Hooray]

You basically posted a howto article here, for the future it would be better to directly add those things to the wiki instead - the forum is usually a pretty crowded place and it often takes just a couple of weeks for postings and threads to completely disappear, due to the sheer volume of postings. So if you want to a share a tutorial, it is better to add it to the wiki and then only post the link here.

[Ozgur]

Sure Hooray, thank you for your friendly and wise advises! I'm little busy today but during weekend i can manage to fix the wiki article.I don't if you have seen my article on wiki about Anaglyph, 3D stereo vision in FlightGear. I'll p.m. you some other issues regarding to your (pm) message...