Why don't voice radio communications use FM?

Bob Noel wrote:
In article ,
"Grumman-581" wrote:

There are some aircraft systems that use an embedded version of XP and WinCE
from what I understood while working at Rockwell...

Which systems? entertainment system? coffee pot? weather display? PFD?

Hey, the coffee pot's important.

Just kidding. Have you ever seen a coffee pot just pulled off an
airliner? Blech.

"Emily" wrote in message
. ..
Hey, the coffee pot's important.

I believe that there are some software controls for the coffee pot... On one
of the aircraft that I was reading the docs on, there were software controls
for various operations and measurements of the waste water system... I don't
remember there being a way of initiating a comode flush via software
though...

"Grumman-581" writes:

I believe that there are some software controls for the coffee pot... On one
of the aircraft that I was reading the docs on, there were software controls
for various operations and measurements of the waste water system...

Sounds like an Airbus.

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"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Sounds like an Airbus.

Perhaps... Perhaps it was one of the Bombadier aircraft... I was reading so
many docs while coming up to speed on the project that it all kind of
blurred together after awhile... The best I remember, there were temperature
sensors in the waste water system in addition to heaters for the lines so
that the temperature at altitude didn't cause everything to freeze up...
Various sensors could be read and were to be displayed on certain displays
if they exceeded some particular normal operating range, IIRC... There was
this one particular cabin lighting system that consisted of red, green, and
blue LEDs with software control of the intensity and color for various zones
in the aircraft... You would send a particular formated TCP/IP message via a
socket connection to a particular controller that would then change the
intensity of the LEDs in the specified zone... Quite a bit of the
communication between the various devices was handled via TCP/IP
communication... I believe that Rockwell had been granted a patent on that
approach...

"Grumman-581" writes:

You would send a particular formated TCP/IP message via a
socket connection to a particular controller that would then change the
intensity of the LEDs in the specified zone...

Seriously? Is it an aircraft or a video game?

And people think I'm being extreme in suggesting FM radio instead of
AM radio?

Quite a bit of the
communication between the various devices was handled via TCP/IP
communication... I believe that Rockwell had been granted a patent on that
approach...

A patent on TCP/IP? Would anyone really want to steal something based
on TCP/IP?

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"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Seriously? Is it an aircraft or a video game?

Yeah, I'm very serious... In fact, it cuts down on the wiring... Think of
multiple control stations aboard an aircraft being able to control various
pieces of hardware... With the typical analog controls like you have for
lights in your house, you would be running 110VAC all over everywhere...
With this sort of system, you run power to the actual device and use lower
gauge wires for sending signals to the controller for that device... Think
of it as every device that you want to possibly control having a particular
IP address and port number... You format a command and send it to the
device... Perhaps this one controller handles multiple physical devices and
the format of the message indicates which device is to be controlled or
queried with respect to its current status... Would you rather hligh voltage
running all around the aircraft or just where it was really needed and
basically the equivalent of phone (i.e. CAT-5/6) wire running everywhere
else? In addition to this, the controls for the cabin entertainment system
also were TCP/IP based... Even the video and audio that was piped throughout
the cabin went over a TCP/IP connection -- UDP, actually...

And people think I'm being extreme in suggesting FM radio instead of
AM radio?

Well, that's because FM doesn't provide any real benefit as compared to AM
for aircraft communications... As I've shown in the above aircraft, using
TCP/IP for communication / control of various devices aboard an aircraft can
definitely provide a certain benefit...

A patent on TCP/IP? Would anyone really want to steal something based
on TCP/IP?

No, a patent on the idea of using TCP/IP for communication between various
systems aboard an aircraft... Or maybe it's a copywrite... Whatever...

On 2006-09-08, Grumman-581 grumman581@DIE-SPAMMER-SCUM wrote:
No, a patent on the idea of using TCP/IP for communication between various
systems aboard an aircraft... Or maybe it's a copywrite... Whatever...

It could be either or both. The code would be copyrighted by default,
and the method itself could be patented. However, just like most patents
issued by the USPTO today, it's barely worthy of a patent because it's
just so obvious to control devices using data passed down some data
connection (such as TCP/IP). I suspect they used TCP/IP rather than
concocting their own control protocol because TCP/IP (for all its warts)
is well understood and TCP/IP stacks are ubiquitous on virtually any
device (including microcontrollers) with even trivial amounts of
processing power - thus reducing development costs.

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"Grumman-581" writes:

Yeah, I'm very serious... In fact, it cuts down on the wiring...

Which means that a single break in a single wire disables multiple
aircraft systems. Brilliant.

Think of
multiple control stations aboard an aircraft being able to control various
pieces of hardware... With the typical analog controls like you have for
lights in your house, you would be running 110VAC all over everywhere...

I could never find a justification for those home remote control
systems that used house wiring, and they weren't always reliable,
anyway.

Well, that's because FM doesn't provide any real benefit as compared to AM
for aircraft communications... As I've shown in the above aircraft, using
TCP/IP for communication / control of various devices aboard an aircraft can
definitely provide a certain benefit...

It makes things cheaper, I suppose. I'm not sure I see a safety
benefit, and there might even be a reduction in safety.

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YOu don't want to talk about blech until you've had to change the cabin
airflow filter on a 727 in a cold hangar at 3 am with a hangover back in the
days when you could smoke on board the aircraft. Nicotine, for those of you
who haven't ever seen the raw stuff, mixed with all the rest of the crap
that had flowed through the airplane, strongly resembles drippy malted snot.

Jim




"Emily" wrote in message
. ..


Just kidding. Have you ever seen a coffee pot just pulled off an
airliner? Blech.