3 ms·
I often wondered about a possibly connected thing about airplane pilot's microphones: Why is it that pilots, when addressing the fliers over intercom always ha
by ginko 14y ago
I often wondered about a possibly connected thing about airplane pilot's microphones:
Why is it that pilots, when addressing the fliers over intercom always have terrible sound quality? You'd think that airlines could afford a high-quality microphone considering the cost of the plane and the pilot's time. Air traffic control should appreciate quality audio as well.
There could be some ruggedness requirement to these microphones that takes precedence over audio quality. Maybe they must withstand decompression?
- icegreentea 14y agoOne of the crazy things is that if you listen to ATC feeds long enough, you stop being aware of the 'quality issue'. EDIT: if you're interested, you can go right here! http://www.liveatc.net/ http://www.liveatc.net/ I transcribed hours of this stuff as part of a research project. The first 4 or so hours were really rough. After that, it got easier, with the majority of issues being that seemingly one in 20 aircraft actually have horrendous audio pickup, and accents.
- lmirosevic 14y agoMaybe the raw sound input is run through a band pass filter that attenuates all noise outside of the human vocal range. This would make the voice sound "bad" but it would actually make it clearer to understand, especially in noisy environments.
- aparadja 14y agoThat's actually a very likely explanation. Thank you.
- Evbn 14y agoSome planes sound fine. Airlines just don't care. The in cabin intercom is not the same feed as the ATC feed.