ATC does not pronounce decimal points

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1

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ISSUE DESCRIPTION

Description of the issue:

The AI ATC voices incorrectly read decimal points as periods, so for example when reading;

Contact Atlanta Approach on 126.975.

the AI will read it as;

"Contact Atlanta Center on one two six pause niner seven five."

instead of correctly reading it as;

"Contact Atlanta Center on one two six decimal niner seven five."

The same is true for barometric pressure readings such as “29.92.”

If applicable, which aircraft is experiencing this issue:

All/Not an aircraft issue.

[PC Only] Did you remove all your community mods/add-ons? If yes, are you still experiencing the issue?

FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

How often does this occur for you (Example: Just once, every time on sim load, intermittently)?

Always.

REPRODUCTION STEPS

Please list clear steps you took in order to help our test team reproduce the same issue:

  1. Load into any airport that has a controller, and turn on the electrical systems
  2. Request taxi clearance
  3. Listen for frequency readout

YOUR SETTINGS

If the issue still occurs with no mods and add-ons, please continue to report your issue. If not, please move this post to the User Support Hub.

What peripherals are you using, if relevant:

[PC Only] Are you using Developer Mode or have you made any changes to it?

[PC, MSFS 2020 Only] Are you using DX11 or DX12?

[PC Only] What GPU (Graphics Card) do you use?

[PC Only] What other relevant PC specs can you share?

MEDIA

Please add a screenshot or video of the issue occurring.

[END OF FIRST USER REPORT]

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Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?
•

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:
•

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:
•

2

Do not use in game ATC, so have no first hand experience. The correct phaseology in the US is:
Contact Atlanta Center one two six point niner seven five
So are they maybe saying ‘point’ and not 'pause"?

3

They are not saying the word pause. They are just pausing. there’s a moment of silence in-between the words six and niner.

Also, the correct phraseology is “decimal,” and not “point.”

4

Oh, pausing would not be correct.

Was a controller for over 30 years; ‘point’ is the correct phaseology in the US.

1 Like
5

I guess i stand corrected then. In MSFS 2020 and onward, it’s always been “decimal.”

6

‘decimal’ is used by ICAO. Since it was Atlanta Center (US), "point’ would be correct.

1 Like
7

Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?
• yes

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:
• Based on the pronunciation, the synthetic voice thinks that the dot corresponding to the decimal separator is the end of a sentence, as the digit just after the pause is read with a higher tone.

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:
•

2 Likes
8

Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?
• Yes

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:
• It’s minor, but really annoying. It just doesn’t understand decimals in numbers and thinks they are the end of sentences.

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:
•

9

Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?
• Yes

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:
• All of the text to speech voices introduce weird pauses where they don’t belong, most consistently when reading a tail number on the radio. They will stop before the last number, then read it with no break before the actual radio call which often times is a frequency or other numeric value. Eg: “N01234 118.25” comes out as “November Zero One Two Three. Four One One Eight Two. Five.”

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:
•

10

Yeah, this is a problem as well. It’s outlined in this post.

1 Like
11

Way back in the FSX days there was a great little program called, EditVoicepack. I used it religiously. It allowed a way to actually create phrases to make airport names as opposed to their ICAO codes. There was also a way to switch your regions so ATC would say “point” if you were in the USA or “decimal” if outside of the USA. Such a shame that we have moved forward from a game that was released in 2006 and we can’t get basic things correct as we advanced more than 18 years in technology.

1 Like
12

Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?
• Yes

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:
• It’s simple: Text-to-speech is always interpreting “.” as a period, instead of a decimal point when digits are on both sides. Either the Azure team needs to add that to their systems (better), or if that will take way too much paperwork, MSFS may need to send “126 point 975” or “126 decimal 975” (depending on whatever’s correct for that location/aircraft) to the TTS engine, even if it means the captions have to display it that way.

13

Text-to-speech is still at entry level.

It would be a simple fix if it understood when there’s no whitespace between digits, i.e. in 123.456 there’s no reason for pause.

At the same time, it ignores commas and makes no pause there - there’s often a continuation of the sentence after the frequency, e.g. “(…) 123.456, blah blah (…)”.

14

The decimal issue was resolved in SU2; thank you!

15

However, it’s still annoyingly saying “decimal” when speaking in the US. This is incorrect. I understand outside of the USA the vernacular used is decimal for frequencies, but within the USA it’s point. As so many were annoyed by missing phrases, it’s just as annoying to hear the sim use the wrong verbiage in specific regions.