From pilot microphone to passengers, to radio/plane communications, it sounds like it’s a microphone from the 1950’s
In: Engineering
Radio communications aren’t as bad as they might appear. Pilots use jargon specifically designed to be understood in poor conditions, and they get used to understanding things even when there is some interference. Also, the communications are in a pretty set format, the pilot already knows what most of the message will be, all they have to do is pick out whether they are clear to land and which runway they should use.
It might all sound like a garbled mess to the layman, but it is perfectly clear to the pilot.
One of the main reasons is sounds bad is that the transmissions are simplex, not duplex. This means when someone starts talking it blocks other transmissions and it just becomes a garbled mess.
When pilots hear a blocked transmission, someone will often chime in by saying “blocked”, so that ATC knows an instruction was probably not received. This cycle further clogs up the frequency.
It’s analog for reliability reasons. The sound quality might not be great, but you can understand what’s being said. The purpose isn’t to make great YouTube recordings. Digital communications are great when they are working and nothing when you’re out of range or under bad conditions. Nothing isn’t acceptable for safety functions. They’d much rather have low quality audio than “no sound”.
The communications you find on YouTube and whatnot are usually recorded by enthusiasts that might have a crappy setup and/or not be too close to the airport.
The actual communications between pilots and ATC/Tower should be much better
the radio is likely narrow-bandwidth (300hz – ~4khz): [Voice Frequency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_frequency)
the microphones and associated electronics may also be optimized for those frequencies as well which would impact the sound for even in-cabin audio.
There are some effort being made to make ATC communication with aircraft better. The EU SESAR project has a lot of modernization ongoing for air traffic, and one of these is digitized comms via radio and via satellite.
That will also introduce authentication/integrity protection, and allow for long distance atc, such as over the Atlantic where traffic is currently not handled by ATC (aircraft out of radio range).
On mobile, but a bit of googling should help you out.
So why use AM? Why can’t it be a fibre cable from cockpit to cabin?
It’s because the signal is still transmitted by changing the amplitude of the carrier (AM). AM is subject to RFI and distortion much more than FM/PM. Add it is also still anolog while we are used to digital communication (phone, audio CD, video…
Not directly related to the question, but the best microphones in the 50’s actually sounded great: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16OoypHXcps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16OoypHXcps).
Latest Answers