Weather radio repeat cycle is too short. It becomes noticeable and then irritating and distracting. I keep wanting to try shortwave news in a language I don't know but sounds nice. If it has too many english or Spanish cognates I'll probably get distracted trying to figure out what is said. Something tonal perhaps, Welsh or Chinese.
Tycho worked weather reports into some of his songs and it added a nice texture but that's a fair point that the repeat cycle is too short for streaming music like this.
MyNoise is the best. Stéphane seems like such a respectful, down-to-earth guy. I don’t pay for many subscriptions—I go out of my way to avoid them—but I put some good money into MyNoise regularly because it’s been such a valuable service. It’s optional—I don’t actually use many of the paid features—but I appreciate it so dang much.
Boston College's FM station WZBC has a program No Commercial Potential, which plays lots of experimental sounds, some of it sounds like MyNoise Flying Fortress. Everything depends on the DJ and their mood, but some of it has this vibe.
HAHA - I came here to say the same (I pay for it as well, and I love the flying fortress with radio chatter...
I just spent some time adding layers of sound to the actual ATC chatter, then I add individual layers, like distant thunder, b29, singing bowls and rain etc...
Everything on that site is fine by the TOS so long as she had permission to use the streams. Since the site has been up for 2 years, I think it's pretty safe to assume she got permission.
First, the pipe buffer between curl and ffmpeg will fill up (something like 64k) and then curl will be more and more delayed getting the next bit of audio from the server. Eventually the HTTP connection will fail. How and when that happens depends on exactly how the server is set up.
On my machine (Ubuntu) it stops after about 15 minutes.
You could increase the buffer size with pv or use a temporary file of course.
Similar to this, I like listening to the Apollo missions in real time[1], picking one active specific station at a time and listening just to that. FIDO is a good one!
I love these stations. SomaFM carries this and others (or maybe they are just similar mash-ups). I have tinnitus 100% of the time, and silence is the enemy. This kind of sound - indistinct, with variety and high frequencies, is the most helpful.
Some others have mentioned SomaFM and the Apollo missions separately, but SomaFM has a station that combines ambient music and the Apollo mission audio: https://somafm.com/missioncontrol/
Soma is such a great station! If you are a Hardcore listener some channels might appear a bit repetitive from time to time but in my experience this self corrects over time.
Super cool. United used to let passengers listen to the flight's atc comms, which I really liked. Then they merged with Continental and got rid of it. I always wondered why the took away that feature.
I recently saw a video where ATC made a mistake and nearly let two planes get too close (one landing, another taking off, on crossing runways). They caught it in time (some ATC automated checking system was still doing its announcement as the controller saw and diverted them both) but hearing that as a passenger, I can imagine the panic that's not going to help anyone.
Don't know if that is the reason, or if that's even a legitimate reason (it's about your life after all, even if you're powerless to save it), but I could imagine that being a consideration.
Have an air traffic controller tell you that your about to die would seem unlikely to be a panic inducing event. The level of calm in utter carnage is very much a thing. I’d prefer not to test this theory.
That reminds me about that one JetBlue emergency landing where passengers could watch their own plane attempt a landing.
IIRC, the flight attendants disabled the system right at landing to prevent presumed panic. That decisions amusing to me since there’s a 15-30 second delay with satellite TV anyway. I can’t imagine there was a true opportunity for passengers to see anything scary in this scenario.
Reading your comment, my flippantly ironic thought was that it's just as well real life isn't delayed from the satellite TV; that could really cause some panic in the cabin!
I do some minor piloting myself and I don't think those things go unreported often. Maybe uncontrollable dirt airports -- yes, sure.
But in class Bravo, with hundreds of souls on board, when all transmissions are recorded and public, and multiple plane watchers listen to them in real time -- not a chance.
Know-it-all PPLs on the flight giving other passengers blow by blow commentary while critiquing the captain. That and not wanting pax to think about being in an aluminum tube traveling 0.7 Mach while in said tube.
I used to have some fear of flying, and listening to channel 9 helped me get over it, because I learned more about how safe and expected turbulence was, and how familiar everyone was with the various procedures and in-flight events.
I'm not sure everyone would have the same reaction, but I found it very calming. Maybe the fact that people like to listen to ATC conversations in order to relax is a good sign for the likely effects on many passengers.
It's true that you could occasionally learn about an error or a dangerous event that you wouldn't otherwise have been aware of at all, but I also think many passengers would be impressed by how professionally problems are usually handled. I've been on two flights that had to divert (for a bird strike and a passenger medical issue, respectively) and one flight that had a missed approach and go-around (in very high crosswinds), and, while none of them had channel 9, I'm quite confident that ATC was prepared to handle these situations and that many passengers would also have been impressed to have heard those conversations.
I'm happy to admit that getting more information about what's going on wouldn't always be comfortable or reassuring to everyone, though.
Same here. I’ve watched a lot of air accident breakdowns and read more than a few NTSB reports. The way safety is a core of commercial aviation is just incredible and so far beyond everything I see in daily life. The way cars are handle is positively horrific.
They didn't take it away completely, but it's now at the flight crews discretion. You can kindly ask a flight attendant to ask the pilot if they will have channel 9 on or ask if they will.
Found this about it[0], but there is still the occasional person asking about it on FF boards and the answer is still, to politely ask the FA about it
I'll have to ask next time. That said the article is quite wrong in that you can't hear conversation in the cockpit, only conversation on the active frequency. You could never and probably will never hear pilot to copilot conversation.
Guess I wasn't paying attention to it, I skimmed it since I fly United often and already knew what it actually was (not pilot conversation). Wasn't sure about posting a specific thread from www.flyertalk.com [0] probably should have just posted that. I dont usually have much luck with it, but I only remember half the time to ask.
They also have this new n5md channel that has sooooo many good tracks :).
I don't get Lofi, it's way too sad/nostalgic to me to be relaxing but the oversound here is okay (for a bit).
edit: BUT. Sometimes somaFM will sing tunes that sounds like Ross from Friends or weird 32 minutes "dzing-dzin" loop. When it happens I click on "wtf ?!" in the app and switch to another channel (that I flood with "I love this").
I love lofi streams on YT. I especially love them combined with ambient nature bathing.
Something about it is sad/nostalgic, for sure. But when you get that ambient nature bathing in there, it becomes, to me, more hopeful and ... healing, in a way. Nostalgia is still there, but more of the hopeful/relaxing vibes than the sad ones.
I got way into them during lockdowns, obviously, but have kept it up. The trick is finding a real nature bathing track. Not just some soundboards that loop or are set at random. Real high quality audio from real places over hours of time are rare, but very worth it. My post history has more on the specific tracks I've found, with a few other commenters chipping in every once in a while.
You get a bit more wanderlust, tempered by the lofi. It's a strange brew, but gets me through the days.
180 comments
[ 84.0 ms ] story [ 3653 ms ] threadThe measured and calm voice of ATC and pilots probably just makes it better, it always sound like they have everything 100% under control.
That entire song makes me picture a white knuckling unscheduled re-entry followed by nail biting waiting, concluded by a successful splash down.
[1] https://youtu.be/JI5noh4OyXc
Heh, who am I kidding, HN runs on outrage just like all the other social networks.
https://youtu.be/CxHa5KaMBcM
I find the use of the Beaufort scale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale) gives it a particularly dry flavor...
https://www.wzbc.org/after-hours-ncp
I just spent some time adding layers of sound to the actual ATC chatter, then I add individual layers, like distant thunder, b29, singing bowls and rain etc...
https://i.imgur.com/8jJkh1B.png
Ill try to share an MP3...
‘ffmpeg -i ATC.wav -filter:a "atempo=0.5" -vn lofiatc.wav’
https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#atempo
curl -L http://d.liveatc.net/klax_twr | ffmpeg -i - -filter:a atempo=0.5 -f s24le - | ffplay -f s24le -ar 8k -ac 2 -
First, the pipe buffer between curl and ffmpeg will fill up (something like 64k) and then curl will be more and more delayed getting the next bit of audio from the server. Eventually the HTTP connection will fail. How and when that happens depends on exactly how the server is set up.
On my machine (Ubuntu) it stops after about 15 minutes.
You could increase the buffer size with pv or use a temporary file of course.
[1]: https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/
edit: just been listening to that Apollo channel - fascinating recordings.
Don't know if that is the reason, or if that's even a legitimate reason (it's about your life after all, even if you're powerless to save it), but I could imagine that being a consideration.
IIRC, the flight attendants disabled the system right at landing to prevent presumed panic. That decisions amusing to me since there’s a 15-30 second delay with satellite TV anyway. I can’t imagine there was a true opportunity for passengers to see anything scary in this scenario.
Reading your comment, my flippantly ironic thought was that it's just as well real life isn't delayed from the satellite TV; that could really cause some panic in the cabin!
https://fallows.substack.com/p/as-bad-as-it-gets-without-bod...
These happen pretty often, and go unreported. So there's not much benefit in people finding out, on the downside there's bad PR.
But in class Bravo, with hundreds of souls on board, when all transmissions are recorded and public, and multiple plane watchers listen to them in real time -- not a chance.
I'm not sure everyone would have the same reaction, but I found it very calming. Maybe the fact that people like to listen to ATC conversations in order to relax is a good sign for the likely effects on many passengers.
It's true that you could occasionally learn about an error or a dangerous event that you wouldn't otherwise have been aware of at all, but I also think many passengers would be impressed by how professionally problems are usually handled. I've been on two flights that had to divert (for a bird strike and a passenger medical issue, respectively) and one flight that had a missed approach and go-around (in very high crosswinds), and, while none of them had channel 9, I'm quite confident that ATC was prepared to handle these situations and that many passengers would also have been impressed to have heard those conversations.
I'm happy to admit that getting more information about what's going on wouldn't always be comfortable or reassuring to everyone, though.
Found this about it[0], but there is still the occasional person asking about it on FF boards and the answer is still, to politely ask the FA about it
[0] https://simpleflying.com/united-airlines-channel-9-story/
[0] https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-airlines-mileageplus/...
They also have this new n5md channel that has sooooo many good tracks :).
I don't get Lofi, it's way too sad/nostalgic to me to be relaxing but the oversound here is okay (for a bit).
edit: BUT. Sometimes somaFM will sing tunes that sounds like Ross from Friends or weird 32 minutes "dzing-dzin" loop. When it happens I click on "wtf ?!" in the app and switch to another channel (that I flood with "I love this").
Add a laugh track and your descent into hell will be complete.
Something about it is sad/nostalgic, for sure. But when you get that ambient nature bathing in there, it becomes, to me, more hopeful and ... healing, in a way. Nostalgia is still there, but more of the hopeful/relaxing vibes than the sad ones.
I got way into them during lockdowns, obviously, but have kept it up. The trick is finding a real nature bathing track. Not just some soundboards that loop or are set at random. Real high quality audio from real places over hours of time are rare, but very worth it. My post history has more on the specific tracks I've found, with a few other commenters chipping in every once in a while.
You get a bit more wanderlust, tempered by the lofi. It's a strange brew, but gets me through the days.
but I guess you want the music, don't you? (me, too)