Harlikwin

Garmin 29

Fix SPO-15

Post it up.

So, what, western RWRs are just magical with perfect bearing accuracy, range etc. Despite many accounts to the contrary? Meanwhile we have evidence that the 29's RWR is blanked, cuz its not really that hard to do. We have pilots and techs saying it worked, and some that said it was broken. I mean its not hard to believe both are true. Parts ran out after the collapse of the SU, even likely in russia. And the few parts that existed likely were held back for actual wartime use. Moreover the SPO-15 worked on plenty of other aircraft with radars, and you want us to believe that for some reason the Soviets "forgot" to make it work with the mig-29.... Sure thing...

Mig-21 doesn't have KH-23, (that was SACLOS like the RB-05 on the viggen or bullpup). Grom (which it never carried was Kh-66?)

I mean, not really. The cockpit is not NVG compatible. Maybe some operator actually did modify it at some point, but I really doubt it. KA-50 has NVG's always has. Not sure on the 24, but that pit isn't actually NV compatible. The soviets did experiment with Gen0 NVG's in Afghanistan, but well, you don't want that modeled.

I mean if you happen to have an actual schematic of the blanker boards along with a technical description from the 9.12 you could just post those for us too. That would clear this up. There are people working on finding em, but if you got em already that would save a ton of time.

I mean, there is nothing particularly complex about making a blocking signal thats measured in khz in the 1970's. Like I could build one using 70's era components today for like 10 bucks. So that argument doesn't really sound realistic. Its a simple crystal oscillator and divider circuit. Maybe they have a circuit from something that isn't a mig29 tho. Since the SPO-15 was modular for many good reasons. The blanking circuits would certainly be modular depending on what platform it was installed on. If you are using a mig23 blanker on a mig29 I'm sure that doesn't work. But its pretty far from "rokit/elektronik" science to make a blanker circuit work at the desired PRF, be it LPRF/MPRF/HPRF from an electronics standpoint. There might some additional caveats synching it which might explain the various "abberant" behaviors tho. Also to address the "1 cable" thing that was brought up, thats like a non issue. Its a coax cable sending a timed signal, like ever other radio cable on earth, nothing "primitive or advanced about it"

Again, the thing here is building a blanking circuit at ANY of these PRF's is trivial with 70's era electronics. So we need to disambiguate the whole "detection/classification" of signals. From turn the thing on/off real fast (aka the blanker). The SPO-15 was modular. The blanker circuit was modular. Its trivial to build, the issue IMO is how they synched it, if they were doing it really simply using the "1 wire" (come on guys, this is clearly a RF coax cable). Then you use the rising edge of the radar pulse to blank the SPO. This is not elegant but if it has a concomitant delay to synch it, it will prolly work "ok"... And honestly the synch part is where it seems to go wrong, which tracks with the "not elegant" coax cable solution. But it "should work" in a perfect (DCS is always perfect when it comes to western electronics) world.

Not to derail this entirely, but cold war historians have only found nuclear war plans in every warpac nation's archives. They are very well documented historically, and there were never any non nuclear ones found (cuz being historians they looked). There is a great Czech book on this (not translated), it happily includes exactly how many kilotons everything near the czech border got on 0 hour, and then how many warheads were reserved for follow on strikes as needed. I know this doesn't comport with western notions of the conventional war they wanted to fight, but it is what it is. Back to the 29, which was designed to work from highways, cuz they expected their own bases to be nuked in return 10 minutes later.

LOL, seconded!

Ask em about the 2us PW tester and the 6us radar PW... Seems like it can sample and block at about 3x the rate of the radar.

I mean realistically its nuclear on day1, thats the only thing known. All the airbases in germany get nuked, UK ones too. Where are they deploying to? I'm assuming its over in 3days.

Moreover the repair manual indicates that the blocking circuit is tested with 2us pulse, while the 29 radar runs HPRF at 6us (166khz), so clearly that blanking circuit can handle a PRF 3 fold higher than the radar PRF. Sorry man, pretty much every tech manual about the SPO-15 talk about a blanking circuit for the radar. And one that runs fine at HPRF. Like honestly this is not a hard problem to actually solve. Like literally every radar does this. What seems to be an issue is that this blanking circuit due to the way its designed, can become desynched with the radar, which leads to the SPO either giving erratic signals (as documented in a few manuals as "MAY HAPPEN", or ofc if its totally out of whack, the SPO overloads/is damamged and presumably has a protection circuit to shut it off (again, very simple, ham radio level circuit).

Yup...

I mean doctrinally mig29 pilots were told not to engage eagles. Vipers were fair game tho.

Yeah fair enough, but the point generally holds, like even in 85 it was still fighting, F4's, starfighters, F5's etc as the average NATO jet. And handful of of 16A's that were doing strike stuff mostly. Again, I'd love it if we had the 23MLA in DCS but well that fell apart... Cuz that would be the good 80's scenario, bulk of the warpac jets some flavor of 23, with a sprinkiling of mig29's. And NATO the bulk, older jets with a sprinkling of "teen" jets. It was 90% done by Razbam, before "the troubles", it woulda been ready last year supposedly. But hey we got the 29 so lets focus on that, and making the most of it. I think it will evolve into a decent enough module given a bit of time. I'm personally curious about ED is gonna do GCI... Maybe AI GCI, that would be cool.

Yeah agreed, the best we can do period wise in DCS, is F4/14(early) vs the 29 for a vaguely peer setup. Which does fit iran/iraq (The very end of it) or would also fit CW germany for 83 or therabouts, since the bulk of the luftwaffe and most other allied airforces were flying F4's, F5's, and f104s (coming soon tm). There were only a few barely working F15's in theatre (3 squadrons), and a few F16/A10 squadrons as well for the USAF, but it was a transition period then. Would be nice to have gotten that 23 to flesh out the 70's era, but it is what it is. And the new Su-17/22 mod looks pretty good, so hopefully that will come soon as well to flesh out the period AF's. As for the 29, its a fairly typical ED release. The most annoying thing being IFF not working in MP, but that seems to be a literal ED trademark at this point, cuz it didn't work with the F18 or 16 on release either IIRC, I'm hoping the "week1" patch fixes that. Also, hopefully the SPO gets "Fixed" so it works as it should based on the feedback in the other thread (not really sure why they did it like that in the first place). And then the COOP modes for the radar/IR. On the upside, I'm actually stunned that the IRST sees clouds, so hopefully IR missiles will see them (and be blocked) soon(tm).

Doctrine mostly I imagine. The primary threat was manpads or IR based systems vs low flying ground attack jets. In terms of A/A combat I imagine the idea was it wasn't needed or would be ineffective since a lot of combat was ambush based. Plus unlike DCS where there is no downside to a "pixel plane", IRL carrying a bunch of highly flamable flares does come with extra risks and hazards. At a guess the change in thinking occurred during the iran-iraq war where at least some air-to-air "myths" got busted, (like in VN, and the Arab israeli wars as well). Especially with the new "threat" of all aspect AAM's. Prior to this I think the thinking was, just fly better than the other guy and you won't need flares. Interestingly the Mig-23MLA did have 6 large flares as stock (downward firing) and then in 82 or whenever the MLD hit, they did add the top mounted dispensers like the 29's got. Though I'm not sure what drove that thinking for the soviets, possibly stinger threats in afghanistan. But if you want a "period" DCS server in the 60's/70's flares should probably be removed from A/A jets, and probably alot of A/G jets too depending on the setting. The obvious problem there is the "rearm" exploit for MP.

I mean the reality of the 70's and into about the mid 80's pretty much no Air to air fighters had CM's fitted for those missions. It was mostly ground attack. F15A no CM's, early F15C's no CM's (they tucked a chaff bundle under the speed brake, just in case), Harriers in the falklands no CM's. The list goes on and on. Ground attack aircraft variously did fit them, but it wasn't universal there either until the very late 80's. The problem in DCS is you don't really have any options to deal with this, especially in MP. Like, great we have a 9.12... Which can fight what period opponents in MP... Oh right the F4E, Mirage F1, and "early" (not out yet) F14A from HB... But in MP servers its fighting all the F-teens from 2003 cuz the community is willfully ignorant of the realities of what fought what and when. And sadly no "early" F-teens aside from the "early" F14A are coming. It woulda been nice to get the Mig23 so at least we could sorta do iran/iraq for which that planeset works, but alas that didn't happen.

Nope... please stop repeating this. Its wrong. You have been corrected by like half a dozen people in the other thread.

My take on it is this. It works fine on a freshly tuned and well maintained set. As the set gradually goes out of tune, you get some weirdness. And if its totally out of whack it just turns off as a failsafe. That basically correlates with all the stories we hear about it. And makes total sense from a technical standpoint. Solution is easy too, have a checkbox for "Shiny new working SPO15" or "old n busted spo15" in the options. Just like with the program options.

Its only been hosted for a decade or so.

Precisely. The only mystery is why ED modeled it as non functional in the first place. I guess exchange pilot accounts. Which seems at odds with the overall level of modeling. At least it should be like 2 lines of code to fix.

The problem here is context. E. Germany only got their migs right before the wall came down. And lack of trained technicians and lack of spares likely doomed the spo-15 into its reversion state (no spo if radar on) We also have reliable accounts where this wasn't the case in the Balkans as well as former mig 29 pilots claiming it wasn't an issue. Along with a repair manual identifying the problem and how to fix it. So while im sure that account is accurate, its also only valid in one specific use case.