Acarsd Problem

[trainman111]

I am running ACARSD V1.66 on my Windows XP Computer. I have my scanner (a BC92XLT) hooked up from the headphone jack to the line-in jack on my computer. The ACARS data signals are coming in through the speakers, but it is as if ACARSD is not decoding the signal. No data is showing up and no position reports are showing up on the map. My sound card is SoundMax Digital Integrated Audio. I don't know if it's a setting I messed up on ACARSD or if ACARSD just isn't getting the signal. I don't know.


Thank you in advance,
Nick

 

[jlh]

nick, have you selected line-in as your audio recording device in xp, and adjusted its level?

 

[trainman111]

jlh,
The only selection I can make for the recording device is SoundMAX Digital Audio. It doesn't even show Line-In as a selection I can make. It makes sense that it needs to be set at Line-In but it shows it as not being an option. I don't know if I'm looking at the right place but I'm looking under Sounds and Audio Devices selected from the control panel, I clicked on the Audio tab then halfway down the page I have the Sound Recording section but it only has that one choice. Also, does ACARSD have to be the active window for it too work, or can it be working in the "background".

Nick

 

[ka3jjz]

I've had it working in the background, but not with your configuration.
Something else to keep in mind - there is a very brief sync tone at the beginning of each transmission. If the software doesn't see it, no decoding will occur.

Most scanners - there are a few exceptions, but not many - have an attack time on the squelch that's simply too slow. So keep your squelch wide open - you want to hear the noise. Don't worry, ACARSD will ignore the noise.

73s Mike

 

[adkad]

Hi Steve: Go to sounds and audio devices, but don't click on the audio tab. Click on advanced, then options, then properties, then recording and you will see all your choices. Make sure the line in is checked. Adkad

 

[trainman111]

I tried everything you guys said so far...selecting line-in, open squelch but still nothing. I'm getting the sqawk on the comp. speakers so I know its not my cable. I don't know if this is the problem or not but I noticed in my database there are no flights listed. Could this be why its not decoding? If not, I don't know then. I may just have to give it up


Nick

 

[ka3jjz]

If all else fails, there is a Yahoo group for ACARSD. 73s and GL...Mike

 

[trainman111]

I'm in that group...i had some other questions that I asked there without much response but I guess its worth a try (again).

Nick

 

[Luis_C]

I tried everything you guys said so far...selecting line-in, open squelch but still nothing. I'm getting the sqawk on the comp. speakers so I know its not my cable. I don't know if this is the problem or not but I noticed in my database there are no flights listed. Could this be why its not decoding? If not, I don't know then. I may just have to give it up


Nick

Try connecting the cable on the microphone in, and selecting the microphone in, in some cases I have noticed that line-in doesn't work, and you have to use the microphone in.

Hope it works.

 

[trainman111]

I got it to work! Thank you to everyone who helped! One last question, if I scan all the ACARS frequencies instead of just listening to the one, will the chances of missing a data signal increase greatly? or will I still get a good amount of messages decoded? Also, how often do the aircraft transmit their co-ordinates because all the ones ACARSD has decoded so far have no co-ordinates in the message. I also noticed something else. There are a lot of signals transmitted that I hear through the scanner, however only a certain number of them are being decoded by ACARSD. The squelch is 100% open and I have selcted 10 for the number of decoder passes on each soundbuffer (ACARSD defaults it to 7) Is there another setting I can change to make ACARSD more sensitive to the signal? Thank you again for all your help on my previous questions everybody!

Nick

 

[DanHenry]

Congratulations Nick.

I'd suggest sticking with a single channel and keeping the squelch open like you're doing now. Some have reported good results with scanning but I'm not one of them! Single channel ops also makes it easier to figure out which channels are the most active in your area. Monitor one channel for 24 hours, record the results, and then move to another until you find the most active ones.

The number of position reports varies by channel and time of day. I reboot every night here and I'm running three scanners into the internal sound card and an external USB Sound Blaster sound card. In the past 21 hours I've had approx 5200 good decoded messages and only 205 positions plots.

Yes, it's normal to hear some tones that don't get decoded. I run with the ACARSD displayed volume around 12-15 or so with the squelch open and no signal. It peaks higher when a signal comes in.

Yes, using 10 decoder passes also increases the odds of decoding as long as it doesn't slow down your computer too much. On my Dell laptop (Pentium M 2.0 GHz) running three scanners into two sound cards, with 10 decoder passes, uses approx 20-40% of the processor.

Have fun.

-Dan

 

[rbts]

What kind of messages do you see with this ACARS decoder? I send and receive ACARS messages all day long at my job. I'm just curious.

rbts

 

[trainman111]

Okay, everything is working excellent. I'm decoding about 1-2 messages a minute. One last question. I got a message saying, "New game images installed. After restart you'll get the original image back." I know there are games on ACARSD but the site won't say how to find them. So, how do I find the games?

Thank you everyone for all your help!

Nick