FGCOM is an addon for the free flight simulator Flightgear. With FGCOM (and the infrastructure behind) Flightgear gets a realtime voice communication system.

FGCOM renamed in June 2007 (from FG_SQAWK) because of the following:

• The perl client was completly rewritten in C
• The program has not much to do with a transponder but more with a communication radio
• Eleminating the wrong written „sqawk“

Sorry, for my bad english… I hope it will be adequate to understand the functionality of the system

Jun 19th 2008: Due to lack of time I have to freeze the further development of fgcom until autumn 2008. Until then I will also not create new accounts.

Feb 5th 2008: A new branch which uses iaxclient version 2 is created. This will become fgcom2 after some testing. Also the development of a LoFi-Filter (the opposite of HiFi ) will be developed.

Nov 22nd 2007:

Due to heavy development at this time there may be some differences between the information on the web pages and the installation. Please follow the discussions on the FlightGear development list or subscribe to this list!

FGCOM realizes a realtime radio/voice-communication for simulation applications (especially for Flightgear but maybe also for other simulations/games). Because I am a lazy programer I try to use existing software to fit my requirements. So the voice transmission is build onto VoIP (realized with Asterisk). Radio frequencies are simulated by conference rooms. The glue between VoIP and Flightgear (the client) is written in C using the libiaxclient iaxclient-library.

FGCOM in combination with the „aircraft“ ATC in Flightgear (currently only the developers version) and perhaps with the FlighGear online map will result in a nice ATC working place.

Currently FGCOM one is developed under Linux (Debian testing (Lenny)) but it should be not a real problem to port the software to other operating systems.

For more information read on…

The current code is developed on a Linux Workstation (Debian testing (lenny)). The code should be portable but I don't know how to port this to MacOS X oder Windows.

On Debian you need the following additional packages for compiling from the source:

• libopenal
• libasound
• libplibul
• libplibnet
• libpthread

Additionaly you need the GCC develop environment. These packages should also be available on other Distributions, perhaps with slightly changes in their names.

You also need an ALSA-driven soundcard and a well configured ALSA. Some hints for configuring ALSA can be found at FGCOM and ALSA.

And last: you need a headset or something equivalent.

The next stable release is coming soon - please be patient or use the developers release from SVN.

PLEASE READ ALL THE INFORMATION INSIDE THIS RELEASE CAREFULLY!

If you need a voice account contact dcoredump@gmail.com

The changes are listed on a separately page.

… just wait a while or try the development code… sorry.

You can get the developers version from:

svn checkout svn://svn.dfn.de:/fgcom/trunk fgcom

There are currently two branches available. One is a test for making the sound more radio-like:

svn checkout svn://svn.dfn.de:/fgcom/branches/iaxc2-lofi fgcom-lofi

You can download them and play around, contribute or do something else with this - but don't think that the branches will work every time fine

Here you can find information about compiling and running FGCOM.

If you have questions please take a look at the FGCOM-FAQ or write an email.

• Bugs??? What's this

Read more about the Technical description of fgcom.

Currently there is no online interface to get an account. Please contact me via email to get one.

• Usage of iaxclient2 and using some kind of LoFi filter to make the sound more realistic
• Building an application for Asterisk which mixes the sound on a frequency for each client based on their location.
• Intercom between two pilots in one machine
• Real METAR Information can be used for generating ATIS.

If there is someone who wants to participate in this exciting feature of FlightGear please contact me via email! It would be great if I had some combatants within this project!

This project is based onto many other open source projects and many guys have aided his project.

• Martin Spott for ideas, supporting and testing!
• Csaba Halasz for writing openal support for iaxclient-1.0
• All „test pilots“ of fgcom
• The FlightGear developers for this very great simulator and the really open program interface
• The FlightGear-Devel-Mailinglist for answering my annoying questions (that will be come soon! )
• The Asterisk and iaxclient developers
• … and all the others in the open source world I have not mentioned here…

• Here is a small part of my .fgfsrc for flying arround at EDDI with FGCOM:

--airport-id=EDDI
--runway=27R
--prop:/instrumentation/comm/frequencies/selected-mhz=121.950
--prop:/instrumentation/comm/frequencies/standby-mhz=126.020
--prop:/instrumentation/nav/frequencies/selected-mhz=114.100
--prop:/instrumentation/nav/frequencies/standby-mhz=112.300
--prop:/instrumentation/comm[1]/frequencies/selected-mhz=118.100
--prop:/instrumentation/comm[1]/frequencies/standby-mhz=119.570
--prop:/instrumentation/nav[1]/frequencies/selected-mhz=112.300
--prop:/instrumentation/nav[1]/frequencies/standby-mhz=114.100
--prop:/instrumentation/adf/frequencies/selected-khz=347
--prop:/instrumentation/adf/frequencies/standby-khz=392
--multiplay=out,10,mpserver02.flightgear.org,5000
--multiplay=in,10,<INSERT_YOUR_HOSTNAME>,5000
--generic=socket,out,10,127.0.0.1,16661,udp,fgcom

• Radar screen for the airports of Berlin

Try Flight-Gear-Devel-Mailinglist or write an email to dcoredump@gmail.com.