How high do you set your headset volume?

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ainokea

Pre-takeoff checklist
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ainokea
Hi, I'm new here. I just started my first training lesson last weekend. I'm just wondering how high you guys keep your headset volume. I can hear my CFI pretty good but the ATC background is at a lower volume. I'm wondering if I should turn it up so I can hear ATC. :confused: My CFI was telling me that he was listening to ATC for the other planes to watch out for us in the practice area. I can hear some of the dialog but I guess I was concentrating more on learning to fly. :) Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks! :)
 
ainokea said:
Hi, I'm new here. I just started my first training lesson last weekend. I'm just wondering how high you guys keep your headset volume. I can hear my CFI pretty good but the ATC background is at a lower volume. I'm wondering if I should turn it up so I can hear ATC. :confused: My CFI was telling me that he was listening to ATC for the other planes to watch out for us in the practice area. I can hear some of the dialog but I guess I was concentrating more on learning to fly. :) Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks! :)
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Hello,

I fly out of the Bay Area too. Where do you fly? Some planes have different volume settings - depending on the radio. My 172 even has separate volume and squelch for the pilot and copilot in ADDITION to the volume knobs physically installed on my headset. I did, one time, in another plane, experience what you are talking about - the people inside the plane were one volume but the AWOS / ATIS / ATC outside the plane was dramatically different.

Kimberly

PS - Welcome to POA.
 
Look for an intercom panel with a volume/squelch knob. This, combined with the volume knob(s) on the radio(s), will allow you to control the relative volumes of ATC and your CFI. You can then control the overall volume with your headset.

Welcome to PoA!
 
gkainz said:
"it goes to 11" :D
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LOL...

In my aircraft there's separate controls for:

- Pilot intercom audio level
- Co-Pilot/Passenger intercom audio level
- Every radio has a separate volume control, including separate levels for Com and Nav on the SAME radio(s)
- My headset has separate volume controls for both left and right ear cups

So...

You have to do some fiddling to get things the way you like them. If you can't hear ATC, turn up the appropriate radio until it's at a level you're comfortable with. You're the pilot. :)

Most folks usually end up with ATC being set a little lower than Intercom in cruise so you can have a conversation or get instruction from the CFI while having ATC a little bit lower in the background, when VFR. IFR, you're listening for your call sign and maybe talking to the CFI or not, and sometimes you just have to grab the volume control of the thing you want to listen to the most and crank it up NOW so you don't miss something... or the always-an-option, "Say again?"

It's a dancing game of volume controls...

Try convincing a CFI to follow a "Sterile Cockpit" rule. Yeah, right... some do it naturally and keep comments to appropriate times. Others, hell... you can't shut them up at all.

Which leads to another button/knob to find on your audio panels in the airplanes you fly...

Sooner or later some passenger -- probably not your CFI -- is going to be babbling on and on about something in your ear and ignoring your frantic hand gestures to be quiet while you're trying to listen to ATC, or worse... won't shut up even after you actually TELL them to.

Almost all audio panels have a "Pilot Isolate" switch. Find it, learn it, love it. Passenger won't shut up... just throw the switch, talk to ATC, fly the plane, and explain later.

Brownie points if it's your in-laws you get to "isolate" away from. :) :) :)

Some of us old farts around here have actually done training in a light aircraft without a headset utilizing that awful cheap paper speaker in the overhead and yelling back and forth at the CFI, a conversation that mostly consists of "What?! I can't hear you!" and using a hand mic to answer the tower calls.

"Struggling" with a modern Intercom is relative bliss. You also aren't deaf after an hour in the pattern or have permanent hearing loss later, which is a big bonus. Hahaha... ;) ;) ;)
 
I guess I never even thought about this. I keep the radio and the intercom at about the same volume but it's a personal choice.
 
gkainz said:
"it goes to 11" :D
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Funny totally OT Story. About 2 years ago I was camping/hiking/fishing in the middle of NOWHERE between Anaconda and Phillipsburg Montana. There's another 4-5 people camping close by and I thought I'd take a walk with the dogs and say hi. Then I was trying to figure out what this British dude was doing in the middle of the woods in nowhere montana. Well, he had a gig to play in Canada years back but got held up at the border, liked the area and just stayed.... He was the drummer in Spinal Tap... the one that spontaneously combusted, he lives here now and had a radio show called "Spontaneous Combustion" The dude's life was a catastrophe after that movie, housed burned to the ground, turned down being the drummer for Journey etc...
 
Ha depends who you are flying with and whether you want/need to hear them. There have been times the I/C 'failed' during some of my flights, darn it.
You most likely can adjust the volume for each and hopefully have both folks comfortable.
 
As a side note, if you're having issues hearing either, try a different headset. I started with a sigtronics headset and it worked nice, but the volume had to be turned up to understand ATC. Eventually got a Bose, and the volumes got turned down / speech intelligibility went up.
 
I have my headset turned all the way up but the radio down. I like to listen to music when I fly
 
For the time being, listen to the CFI and not to ATC. Your first responsiblity right now is the directions from the CFI and learning to fly. As you get more familiar with the mechanics of flying, and you become more used to doing things automatically, you'll be able to pay more attention to ATC.

Think of it the same way you learned to drive, probably with a parent in the right seat. If like me, it was in an empty parking lot so we didn't have to worry about traffic until I understood about brakes, accelerator and the wheel. Same with flying. Get comfortable with the controls and what they do first.
 
Eventually got a Bose, and the volumes got turned down / speech intelligibility went up.
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+1000

I fly with a several guys and they always have the volume on their intercom (using non-enc sets) up near max, and mine is at ~3/10 (BoseX).

When we swap places, they can't hear a thing and mine is deafening.....so we do the routine.
 
TripleZ said:
As a side note, if you're having issues hearing either, try a different headset. I started with a sigtronics headset and it worked nice, but the volume had to be turned up to understand ATC. Eventually got a Bose, and the volumes got turned down / speech intelligibility went up.
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For the OP --

Not just the Bose, but any Active Noise Reduction (ANR) headset will accomplish this.

First set I used was passive, and I had to have the volume up to hear the controllers clearly, but still had to pick the out of the background noise from the engine.

Now I have a set of Zulu.2 (ANR) and really like them. Noise level when flying and no one talking is like a quiet office... and when ATC speaks, I can hear them very clearly and the volume is set at "normal talking level".
 
AggieMike88 said:
Now I have a set of Zulu.2 (ANR) and really like them. Noise level when flying and no one talking is like a quiet office... and when ATC speaks, I can hear them very clearly and the volume is set at "normal talking level".
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I just got the Zulu.2 and have a question about them. Can you still hear the engine in your set? I can still here the engine noise quite well. It's not as loud but I can still make out engine power changes.

I like to keep the ATC volume were I can clearly make out everything being said. I love the Comm1/2 split feature that our Pipers have. It makes listening to ATIS and talking to ATC at the same time so much easier.
 
Yes to hearing the engine okay, but it's more bone/body conduction than normal hearing.
 
I have my headset set quite low, nearly as low as it will go. However, I also have to listen to as many as 4 different feeds at one time, so selective listening becomes a skill one quickly acquires.
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
I have my headset set quite low, nearly as low as it will go. However, I also have to listen to as many as 4 different feeds at one time, so selective listening becomes a skill one quickly acquires.
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Ready the aerial shot...

Take the aerial shot.

Camera 3, get on the dugout please.

Ready 3, take three.

Thanks aerial... nice work up there tonight.

Do you guys know what I had for dinner? Stromboli.

Ready 2, Take 2.

Ready 1, Take 1.

You have the replay, trailer? Okay, Ready replay... Wipe, and Roll it.

The stromboli was pretty good, but kinda dry... that place up the street.

Ready 2, Take 2.

:)
 
Thanks everyone for your feedback! :) I'll bring it up with my CFI about adjusting the volume controls on what works best. I bought a brand new DC H10-13S headset. Those ANR headsets are nice but since I am still a student I'll save the money for lessons. :)

@Kimberly - I live in the peninsula but fly out of HWD. :) It's more pocket friendlier compared to the closer airports (SQL and PAO).
 
Loud enough to hear it.




:rolleyes:









:D
 
denverpilot said:
Ready the aerial shot...

Take the aerial shot.

Camera 3, get on the dugout please.
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I wish that was it. Some of the directors are like that and for lack of a better term, some of them think it's always talk like a pirate day. Put the director feed, the broadcast feed, the ground crew/receive site feed and ATC together, what do you get?

Everyone wants to talk to you all at the same time.
 
ainokea said:
I bought a brand new DC H10-13S headset. Those ANR headsets are nice but since I am still a student I'll save the money for lessons. :)
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I forget who it is, but someone makes an ANR upgrade kit for the DC headsets. I've spoken to a few pilots who have done this and they really like the results.
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
I wish that was it. Some of the directors are like that and for lack of a better term, some of them think it's always talk like a pirate day. Put the director feed, the broadcast feed, the ground crew/receive site feed and ATC together, what do you get?

Everyone wants to talk to you all at the same time.
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Heh. Yeah. I've listened in on a lot of Director's loops for sports. Not many for other stuff, a few newscasts. (Being in the conference call biz in the 90s had its perks.)

I was just poking fun at it. You guys are a lot busier behind the scenes than most people watching a live sports event have any clue about.

Some of the baseball guys are amazing what they know in baseball history. Their schedule is far more grueling than any of the others and those guys truly seem to "live, eat, and breathe" baseball.

The stuff they'd reference on the Director's loop during the games was just fascinating. It was fun to hear the on-air talent pick that stuff off and say it like they knew it all along, too. Hahaha. The talent usually knew a lot about baseball, but the Director always knew more.

Fly safe. Too bad our town ain't friendly for blimps. The networks have to pimp out to the local helicopter operators for their aerial shots up here. ;)
 
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