How to use the ADF on the F5?

[Spacehamster]

How to use the ADF on the F5?

 

Set the frequency to 335 and approached Kobuleti, no signal at all. The radio is set to ADF and MANUAL and the Antenna to AUTO. Is that feature not completed yet? Because TACAN works.

 

1. What if the NDB frequency is higher than 399? Because the UHF dials only have 3 as a setting for hundred.

 

2. What do the letters after NDB beacons mean? Like, Kobuleti, NEAR NDB 335 (BI)

[emko]

Did you flip the 'Navigation mode' switch? See Chuck's guide, part 12 - ADF Navigation Turoial, switch 5.

 

The ADF in F5 works, I'm actually preparing a mission where you have to find a unit using the ADF so I have tried :) .

 

Edit: Beware that the frequency of the UHF radio signal is measured in megahertz. 399MHz is freaking high frequency. Normally the NDBs (omni-directional beacons used for navigation) are some 200 to 1700 KHz (or up to 500 in USA). You can't tune them in F5. What you can do is open the mission editor, put there a trigger zone and trigger a 'Radio transmission' action. If you set a correct frequency, you can then tune it from F5.

Edited September 21, 2016 by emko

[Ramsay]

2. What do the letters after NDB beacons mean? Like, Kobuleti, NEAR NDB 335 (BI)

The letters after the NDB frequency are the Morse code identifier it transmits i.e. "BI" = "-... .."

 

http://morsecode.scphillips.com/translator.html

[Spacehamster]

Did you flip the 'Navigation mode' switch? See Chuck's guide, part 12 - ADF Navigation Turoial, switch 5.

 

The ADF in F5 works, I'm actually preparing a mission where you have to find a unit using the ADF so I have tried :) .

 

Edit: Beware that the frequency of the UHF radio signal is measured in megahertz. 399MHz is freaking high frequency. Normally the NDBs (omni-directional beacons used for navigation) are some 200 to 1700 KHz (or up to 500 in USA). You can't tune them in F5. What you can do is open the mission editor, put there a trigger zone and trigger a 'Radio transmission' action. If you set a correct frequency, you can then tune it from F5.

 

That means I can not manually dial in an ADF?

[emko]

You can! Just not to the station you want.

 

ADF stands for "automagic direction finder". In simple English a device which shows you a direction where a radio station is. The "radio station" here in my oversimplified definition is the interesting part. They can broadcast on many frequencies and bands.

 

Navigation NDBs (non-directional or omni-directional beacons) which are commonly used as ground-based navigation aids are long-wave radio stations - the Kobuleti near NDB is one of them. It's transmitting on frequency 335KHz.

 

The only trouble with F-5 is that you can't tune it's radio/ADF to such a low frequency (the 335 on the F-5 radio is not 335KHz but 335MHz! 1000x higher frequency). It's the same problem you have with a smartphone - there's usually only a VHF radio there (some 80-110 MHz) and you can't tune e.g. 1071KHz station which is in the MW band. (Hey, that's my favourite station! But I can catch it only by using my car radio. If I commute to work by a train (usual case, I'm too lazy to drive) and the only thing I have is a smartphone, I'm out of luck and I have to read a newspaper. Sad but true...)

 

So if you want to use an ADF for your mission, you can manually add a radio station in mission editor. You unfortunately can't use the Kobuleti near NDB because it broadcasts in a different band than you can tune in.

 

Another question is what you want to use the Kobuleti near NDB for. It's a low-powered beacon with very short range. It's in the same place where a middle marker would be in USA. In the Eastern block it's not uncommon to use NDBs in place of outer marker (distant NDB / far NDB / what it's called in proper English?) and middle marker (near NDB). It's good mainly for ILS approaches and there is no ILS in F-5. ;)

Edited September 21, 2016 by emko

[Spacehamster]

So it is a matter of the F5 ADF not being able to tune into that frequency band.

 

Is that different on the Nevada map? I do not have it.

[ESAc_matador]

In any case you can create your own NDBs!!! Really simple

[emko]

Neither I have the Nevada map yet. But if you look at the real world map

 

https://skyvector.com/?ll=37.798933458736066,-116.78082275001327&chart=301&zoom=5

 

there's not really any enroute NDB. There are couple of VORTACS though and you can tune them (VORTAC = VOR+DME (can't be used in F-5) combined with TACAN (can be used)). NDBs in the real world are being phased out quite quickly and even the more capable radio beacons can become an awful scarce in some areas.

 

Since the F-5 doesn't have any advanced navigation system (GPS, INS...) the ADF has its use. E.g. if you want to locate a unit, they can transmit a simple message/beep over the radio and the ADF shows you a direction to them. The UHF antennas can be quite small so it's possible to manufacture a handheld UHF radio. You can't really have anything like portable NDB (well, in fact, you can; but look how large it is: http://www.southernavionics.com/portable-ndb).

Edited September 22, 2016 by emko

[Erk104]

I don't want to depart from the main topic but I have noticed that the radio tuner has A, 2, 3, T that are available. What does the A and the T do? What would they be used for?

 

After reading further posts I found this: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=171558&highlight=adf

 

However I am still confused does T=1? I wish the manual explained this a little further.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Erk104

[grunf]

In real AN/ARC-164 radio, A is used to enter the active mode, i.e., anti-jamming, frequency hopping mode. T is used to receive Time-of-day, to sync the time, which is used for active mode.

 

In DCS, T acts as 1, enabling to use the frequencies in 1xx MHz range, which can't be used on real radio (UHF only, 255-399MHz). I don't think A has any function.

[Erk104]

In real AN/ARC-164 radio, A is used to enter the active mode, i.e., anti-jamming, frequency hopping mode. T is used to receive Time-of-day, to sync the time, which is used for active mode.

 

In DCS, T acts as 1, enabling to use the frequencies in 1xx MHz range, which can't be used on real radio (UHF only, 255-399MHz). I don't think A has any function.

 

Thank you grunf appreciate the help. Makes I am going test around a little more with this functionality this evening.:book:

[grunf]

Thank you grunf appreciate the help. Makes I am going test around a little more with this functionality this evening.:book:

You can tune in to 117.1MHz beacon (VOR) near Minvody and 115.8MHz near Krasnodar. :)

 

BTW I made a typo with UHF frequency range, its 225-399MHz, doesn't change anything though. :D

[DieHard]

In real AN/ARC-164 radio, A is used to enter the active mode, i.e., anti-jamming, frequency hopping mode. T is used to receive Time-of-day, to sync the time, which is used for active mode.

 

In DCS, T acts as 1, enabling to use the frequencies in 1xx MHz range, which can't be used on real radio (UHF only, 255-399MHz). I don't think A has any function.

 

IS the info I have been looking for concerning "T" and "A" .

 

Thanks for posting this info.

 

+1

[lilyrosy]

On 9/21/2016 at 11:52 PM, Ramsay said:

The letters after the NDB frequency are the Morse code identifier it transmits i.e. "BI" = "-... .."

 

http://morsecode.scphillips.com/translator.html

https://morsecodeconverter.net/