# Are my ears bad or are air traffic conversations unintelligible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 17, 2015, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765 "2015-11-17T01:03:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/1 "2015-11-17T01:03:16Z")
Listening to air traffic controller videos on YouTube, the talk is garbled and muffled most of the time. How do pilots and ATCs comprehend? Do they just have great ears? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/2 "2015-11-17T01:04:38Z")
You learn to hear. I would imagine the microphones on the recorder aren’t so great. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/3 "2015-11-17T01:10:47Z")
Lots of what they’re saying are numbers. Tail numbers, runway numbers, abbreviations and acronyms. It probably makes a huge difference if you know what you’re listening for. If you’re in plane AAL22 and waiting to be told if you’re taking off on 19R or 25L, it’s probably a lot easier than if you have no familiarity at all with anything they’re saying. You’re trying to listen to a very low quality transmission of something that you know none of the lingo. You could probably have these two people talk to each other, just like that, right in front of you, and still not have any real idea of what they’re saying. [Here, try this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZsv5nB88rc). It has subtitles. Close your eyes before it gets started and listen to it and see if you can understand anything. Then after a bit, read along and I’ll bet you can hear everything with almost no problem at all. ---
**Author:** ![WF\_Tomba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@WF\_Tomba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WF_Tomba)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/4 "2015-11-17T01:13:36Z")
Also, they know what they’re listening for. There’s presumably a limited set of words and phrases that are spoken often. ETA: What he said. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/5 "2015-11-17T01:13:41Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > You learn to hear. > I would imagine the microphones on the recorder aren’t so great. Maybe, but it sounds like the aircraft /ATC radio equipment itself is bad. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/6 "2015-11-17T01:25:40Z")
I don’t know if ATC recorders are much different than call recorders for 9-1-1 centers, but I suspect it is pretty much the same. In our 9-1-1 center the sound quality on the recorder is MUCH better than what I hear live through my headset. Our new employees often have a harder time understanding radio transmissions until, as others have noted, they learn what to expect to hear. But once you know the lingo it is remarkable what information you can pick out of the static and mumbled or garbled transmissions. As an aside, our radio system picks up Havana, Cuba ATC when the weather is right. Their transmissions are pretty clear, though accented. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/7 "2015-11-17T02:22:21Z")
> [@WF\_Tomba](#): > > Also, they know what they’re listening for. There’s presumably a limited set of words and phrases that are spoken often. > > ETA: What he said. Yeah, this. The possible phrases you’d expect to hear at particular times are very limited and those phrases are designed to sound different to each other. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/8 "2015-11-17T06:55:26Z")
In an old little plane with a lot of wind & engine noise, a crappy speaker behind the over head covering & a hand mic = you really have to listen hard. Good newish radios while using a David Clark headset with a boom mic & a push to talk switch in an quieter aircraft, both wind & engine wise is much much better than what you are going to be listening with most of the time. A dedicated aircraft radio with a good head set will naturally be better than a scanner or portable radio with a short wave band. Plus all that the others have said up thread. ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/9 "2015-11-17T07:08:15Z")
In my experience as a private pilot, flying multiple makes and models of small single-engine planes (Cessnas, etc.), I never had any trouble whatsoever understanding ATC radio calls, and the audio quality was quite good. Better than most cell phone conversations in fact. I almost never mis-heard or failed to understand a transmission, and I’m not a particularly astute listener, it was just a non-issue. Aviation band radio is just simple AM signals, at frequencies close to those used for broadcast FM radio. They have plenty of bandwidth, communication is unobstructed line of sight and airplanes are usually far from sources of interference (being thousands of feet in the air). Even when the plane is on the ground, airports are pretty wide open spaces. Recorders used by Youtubers to monitor ATC transmissions are on the ground, and not super close to the airport. There will be a lot of obstacles between the transmitting and receiving antenna, and lots of RF interference. That’s why the audio from these YouTube recordings sucks. The ATC facility will have a very good recording but these don’t usually get released. The YouTube recordings are just some guy in his basement with an antenna and a scanner (usually). ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/10 "2015-11-17T07:33:53Z")
> [@WF\_Tomba](#): > > Also, they know what they’re listening for. There’s presumably a limited set of words and phrases that are spoken often. Also, the words and phrases are specifically chosen/engineered to be distinctive and distant from one another - the radiotelephonic alphabet, for example, and the use of ‘niner’ (because ‘nine’ can sound like ‘five’ if the audio quality is low). There are others (use of ‘climb’ instead of ‘ascend’?). ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/11 "2015-11-17T08:16:05Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > [Here, try this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZsv5nB88rc). It has subtitles. Close your eyes before it gets started and listen to it and see if you can understand anything. Then after a bit, read along and I’ll bet you can hear everything with almost no problem at all. That British Airways guy at the beginning is kind of a dick. ---
**Author:** ![Dereknocue67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6de8d8/32.png) [@Dereknocue67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dereknocue67)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/12 "2015-11-17T08:28:37Z")
I was an Air Force ATC for 5 years serving stateside and in Germany and even considering European accents, the majority of transmissions involve routine phraseology and are clearly and easily understood. Most miscommunication was usually a result of poor/faulty equipment and/or weather conditions. My communication issues involved two pilots transmitting simultaneously on separate frequencies while coming through my single headset or dual transmissions on the same frequency making each garbled. On those occasions you direct one pilot to standby and have the other pilot repeat the transmission. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/13 "2015-11-17T09:33:26Z")
> [@WF\_Tomba](#): > > Also, they know what they’re listening for. There’s presumably a limited set of words and phrases that are spoken often. ^ This. After you get some practice it’s less muddled. When I was in flight school my instructor handed me two tapes of actual ATC transmissions. He suggested I not only practice listening to them, but do so in a noisy environment (airplane cockpits, especially for small planes, is quite noisy) so I listened to them while riding commuter trains to and from work. Great practice for the real world. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/14 "2015-11-18T15:41:59Z")
In addition to all the good points above with which I agree … I don’t know specifically which videos you’re talking about so the following may not be fully applicable. I’m imagining some guy with an aircraft radio monitor at his house. It’s attached to an antenna outside of dubious quality. Or maybe it has a single telescoping “half rabbit ear” on the back and that’s it. Meanwhile, the ATC ground transmitters are some distance away and their antennas are generally aimed upwards, not trying to waste signal hugging the ground 15 miles away. The guy’s monitor radio has a 2" speaker in it. And then he puts the microphone of his computer right beside the speaker and hits “record”. Lots of ways for that to introduce mushmouth. Then he takes that crappy recording and MP3’s it at max compression. etc. ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/15 "2015-11-18T16:06:28Z")
I am a private pilot and have never had trouble understanding ATC except for one controller who just mumbled her words and I had to ask her to “say again” a couple times. The audio quality in my headset is better than on my cell phone. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/16 "2015-11-18T16:49:27Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > In addition to all the good points above with which I agree … > > I don’t know specifically which videos you’re talking about so the following may not be fully applicable. > > I’m imagining some guy with an aircraft radio monitor at his house. It’s attached to an antenna outside of dubious quality. Or maybe it has a single telescoping “half rabbit ear” on the back and that’s it. Meanwhile, the ATC ground transmitters are some distance away and their antennas are generally aimed upwards, not trying to waste signal hugging the ground 15 miles away. > > The guy’s monitor radio has a 2" speaker in it. And then he puts the microphone of his computer right beside the speaker and hits “record”. > > Lots of ways for that to introduce mushmouth. Then he takes that crappy recording and MP3’s it at max compression. > > etc. That is basically how LiveATC works (although they are typically patching their crappy radios directly into their computers and providing a live stream.) The stuff you hear on [funny ATC](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=novZbhah02A) YouTube videos is generally of poorer quality than the actual controllers and pilots will hear, because it’s recorded on amateur equipment sometimes quite far removed from the actual transmission source. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2015, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/17 "2015-11-20T02:23:56Z")
> [@Dereknocue67](#): > > I was an Air Force ATC for 5 years serving stateside and in Germany and even considering European accents, the majority of transmissions involve routine phraseology and are clearly and easily understood. Most miscommunication was usually a result of poor/faulty equipment and/or weather conditions. Just out of curiosity, where were you stationed? I worked with some Air Force ATC, but I was Army ATC maintenance, so part of an Army ATC company. I did my time in Hanau and also Ft. Hood. We actually had an Air Force Meteorology attached to our company in Hanau. For the sake of others, I was the guy making those radios, voice recorders, communications consoles, beacons, primary and secondary radars actually work, and it meant a _lot_ of radio communication with the tower. Learning to hear is just a skill you pick up as you get used to it. It’s a good life skill, too. When I moved to China I had to work with native Indians more than ever, in a non-face-to-face manner (because they’re in India). Understanding them was a real challenge at first, but now they’re easy to understand. It just takes practice. ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2015, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/18 "2015-11-20T02:51:54Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > That British Airways guy at the beginning is kind of a dick. See I think the ATC woman was being a little bitchy to him especially toward the end. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2015, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/19 "2015-11-20T04:01:27Z")
While it’s true that we anticipate a certain phraseology and that helps understand what is said it’s also a double edged sword. I’ve been in the cockpit many times when they give strange instructions and both pilots look at each other with a “WTH” expression. It’s then a “did I hear what I thought I just heard” moment. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2015, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765/20 "2015-11-20T07:30:20Z")
Yeah, expectation helps you understand phrases but it can also lead you to hearing what you expect instead of what was said. Which is why we have read backs of the important bits, but even then everyone can get it wrong. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-my-ears-bad-or-are-air-traffic-conversations-unintelligible/737765.md?page=2)