Communications

After you connect to VATSIM, the controller list appears along the left side of the xPilot window. Controllers are grouped by facility type, and each entry shows the controller’s callsign and frequency. Hover over a callsign to see the controller’s name.

Voice Communications

To talk to a controller, tune their frequency on your aircraft’s COM1 or COM2 radio and make sure that radio is set to both transmit and receive. You can also tune a radio for receive only, which is useful when listening to ATIS on the second radio.

The radio stack in the upper-left corner of the xPilot window shows the current status of both radios. The TX and RX labels are white when transmit and receive are enabled for that radio.

In the example below, COM1 is set to both transmit and receive, while COM2 is disabled for both.

The Speaker and Headset icons let you choose whether each radio is routed to your configured speaker or headset output device.

Your aircraft’s avionics must be powered on for the COM radios to work. If the avionics are off, the TX and RX indicators are grayed out and you will not be able to transmit or receive.

If xPilot does not correctly synchronize your radio transmit or receive state, you can override it manually with dot commands.

To force xPilot to receive on a specific COM radio, use the .rx command. For example, .rx com1 on enables receive on COM1.

To force xPilot to transmit on a specific COM radio, use the .tx command. For example, .tx com2 sets COM2 as the active transmit radio.

For more information, see Dot Commands.

Text Communications

To send a text radio message, open the Messages tab, type your message into the command line at the bottom of the message area, and press Enter. xPilot sends the message on the radio currently selected for transmit.

Incoming text radio messages appear in the main message area. If you are receiving on more than one radio, the message includes the frequency it was received on.

If a text radio message is specifically addressed to you, xPilot plays a notification sound and displays the message in cyan. Messages intended for other pilots, or general radio traffic not directed at you, appear in gray.