But you said you turn the vPilot volume down in Windows mixer. Doesn’t that turn down the volume of any vPilot-generated audio, regardless of which device it is coming from? Did you mean to say that you turn down your headset volume, not vPilot volume?
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Why do we only test it? Why can’t we use it to raise an aircraft? I might try ignoring any voice calls when with an ATCO in Oceanic, and only T reply if they SELCAL me.
We can, and we do. Not sure how common it is as I rarely fly oceanic, but at least ATC did use it when I flew in CTP a while back.
No, I use the volume mixer for voice only. It may or may not cause issues if you use the new Win11 panel, but I use the old volume mixer (Run sndvol), and it will allow you to change between active audio devices. My main audio device is my speakers, all software that makes sound will show there, including vPilot. However, because I set up my USB headset as my tx/rx device in vPilot and in Discord, those two parts of those applications show under the separate device in sndvol too, allowing adjustment of only those audio sources for that device.
If this is still not clear, I can always make a short recording later. In short, I can turn my vPilot radio volume all the way down, but still have Discord at 100% in my headset, and vPilot software sounds (except I delete all non-me centric audio files because I genuinely don’t want to know what Unicom is doing while in cruise) through the speakers.
What? You don’t only test it. You use it as a replacement for actively listening on the radio, if you have tested it first.
You cannot check in with Shanwick on entry, and simply turn the volume down. You have to make sure Shanwick can reach you via SELCAL, and once that is done, you can turn the volume down. Once the SELCAL is checked, you and ATC is in agreement that they shall now SELCAL you rather than blind call for you via voice when they need your attention.
No need … the fact that you were using sndvol and not the “regular” mixer was the missing piece. I didn’t realize (because I’ve never needed or looked into it) that sndvol allowed you to set volumes on a per-application AND per-device basis. That’s pretty nice. It doesn’t look like the regular mixer allows for that, unfortunately. Wouldn’t be the first time Microsoft made things less configurable over time. 
Maybe there’s a way to do it, but I can’t find it. Oh well, at least you can still get to the old mixer. Good to know!
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In what way is the expansion not simulated? Does the ATC client not provide a way of generating the SELCAL message using the expanded codes?
I ask because vPilot doesn’t prevent you from using the expanded codes, and there’s nothing on the VATSIM server that would prevent it.
What I have been trying to sat is I have never had an ATCO on VATSIM use SELCAL to contact me. (Outside of the initial test) So my original question is why test it if they aren’t using it? Seems to be a stupid test (because we always have done it) if it isn’t going to utilised. As mentioned I have never been contacted by an ATCO with SELCAL (outside of test).
Well, our experiences differ. Any airspace I’ve been in that offers it, has been using it. And I 100% use it for all equipped and tested aircraft. One thing puzzles me though, did they try to reach you at all? If they did, and succeeded, you must have been sat there listening anyway, so why bother with equipping SELCAL at all if you’re not gonna let it do it’s main function (letting you stop monitoring)?
Well you got me, I don’t truly know, I’m actually only guessing SELCAL 32 wouldn’t work out of the box on VATSIM, and that it’s not a massive priority at the moment (which it really shouldn’t be). Would vPilot accept AB-C2, for example? Is the code just saying this equals that, therefore bingbong?
Ahh, no, it wouldn’t actually. I was thinking the expansion just added letters, not numbers. vPilot currently only accepts letters in the text box where you enter your SELCAL code. This would be a very easy change for me to make, though.
Well, I opened a discussion, I see. Thank for all the explanations.
However, back to the topic: @887155 Right now, I am really confused if I did not make a typo MR/RM. I’ll test it next time. However, I got no notification from vPilot, neither in debug, nor in chat, nor via forwarded plugin method. Of course, I was not brave enough to ask the ATC if he did not do something wrong (have no idea what UI uses ATC to do that).
Tomorrow I do the further test so I’ll let you know if it occurs again. I was just curious if there may be some rule-checks at the vPilot side causing this; according to your answer, I expect there are none except the XX-XX (X must be letter) format.
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It depends on how the controller sends the SELCAL - you should make sure that what you type on vPilot/xPilot is the same as the SEL/ field on the flight plan that you filed, to avoid issues.
For Euroscope especifically, there are two ways for a controller to send a SELCAL to a pilot (ignoring any plugins that might add new ways to do it). They can send a specific code, that the controller needs to type. I usually do this for the initial check from pilots, but this is not really practical when sending a selcal down the line, as you would need to write it down somewhere and/or remember it.
The other way is to use the selcal command and select the aircraft - this will parse the SEL/ field from the flight plan, and send that code. If you connect with a code, but your flight plan has a different one that doesn’t match, you won’t receive the ping if the controller is not especifically typing the one you connected with (which is fairly common)
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