[CAN NOT REPRODUCE]Walleye Losing Video feed on launch

[Nin]

As soon as I launch the walleye, even after successfully getting video feed and slewing to target, I lose video signal. I have my DL pod turned on via the UFC, and the correct channel set.

 

I follow the instructions set out in chucks guide to the letter. I have tried on both stable and openbeta and can get neither to work.

[Frederf]

There are wired and radio video feeds. To get radio video from the datalink pod you need to box it, type it, and be on the right channel. You can verify the radio link while the weapon is still carried and compare it to the wired video before launch. They look different.

 

For the purposes of this demonstration an F-18 is started in air with the following items in payload:

STA 2 AGM-62

STA 3 AGM-84E

STA 5 AWW-13 Datalink Pod

STA 7 AGM-84E

STA 8 AGM-62

The mission is started and autopilot or active pause may be used so all attention can be paid to the systems.

 

Press PB 8 "DL13". You will not see video from any weapon and the pod will default to "CH 002". Changing channels will not produce video as none of the weapons are on.

 

Press PB 6 "WEDL" to select the Walleye on station 8. Note that there is video present, "STA 8" appears in the upper left corner, "CH 002" remains as before in the bottom right corner, and the label "STEP" appears next to PB 13. This situation may be confusing because video-over-radio is shown despite the fact that "STA 8" is selected and "CH 002" is the channel. STA 8 is supposed to be on CH 008 so why can we see video when the pod is tuned to CH 002? Honestly I think it's a bug but I can show you what's going on.

 

Really DL13 is tuned to CH 008 even though it says "CH 002" in the corner. The problem is that the second you launch this weapon the pod is going to go back to showing CH 002 and you're going to lose video on the weapon. So what's going on? To answer that we're going to look at two things: one the label "STEP" is shown on PB 13. That tells you that the DL13 is in "PRI STA" mode which is the only mode that "STEP" is shown there. What is "PRI STA"? It means that the DL13 pod is automatically tuned according to the currently selected weapon. You can try it if you want, Press PB 13 "STEP" and watch the selection alternate between STA 8 and STA 2. If you are close enough to a building you can see the view shift because the two weapons are located a few feet left and right of the center of the airplane. When you change weapons by "STEP" the DL13 pod will change to match. That sound like a wonderful convenience except it is totally not.

 

The problem is the second you launch that first Walleye, even if you fix the CH assignment the DL13 is going to automatically reconfigure the DL13 to tune the channel of the other station and override the assigned channel without changing the label in the lower right corner. For example if you launch STA 8 then you will want to tune the DL13 to CH 008 but that will be impossible because PRI STA is automatically tuning CH 002 regardless of what it says in the lower right corner of the display. If you launch a second Walleye then there is no selected weapon and it's impossible to do tune either one of the Walleyes in flight. Basically "PRI STA" is completely unusable and it's the default WPN mode at start up. You have to change it or you will have problems.

 

So what do we do about that? We use a DL13 mode other than PRI STA. How do we do that? Press PB 1 "WPN" to open the menu of modes. We see "WEDL" "SLAM" "SLAM" "WEDL" "PRI STA" listed vertically. Those correspond (top to bottom) with Walleye on STA 2, SLAM on STA 3, SLAM on STA 7, Walleye on STA 8, and currently selected station. Pressing any of those selections does two things. One, it tells DL13 what type of weapon to interface with and two it changes the DL13 channel. For a successful video link the DL13 must be configured for both the weapon type and the channel that match the weapon to receive video from.

 

For example if you set DL13 to type "SLAM" and channel "008" and then fire Walleye (STA 8/CH 008) you won't get video. Why? Because even though the DL13 is looking for video on CH 008 and the Walleye is producing video on CH 008 the pod is looking for SLAM-type video. Those are incompatible.

 

So how do we set the correct type and channel to launch Walleye? We pick from the "WPN" menu either of the two "WEDL" options. The top "WEDL" will set the link type to Walleye and change the DL13 pod to CH 002 and the bottom "WEDL" will set the link type to Walleye and channel to CH 008. After you pick either of those two you are free to change the channel of the DL13 pod. Obviously picking the bottom "WEDL" will save you a little work if you plan to launch a Walleye using channel 008 but either works.

 

Perhaps you made a mistake and launched a Walleye on channel 008 but the pod is set to the wrong type and wrong channel. What do you do? If you don't have any more Walleye on board there is nothing you can do. But if you have one then you can choose from "WPN" menu the other "WEDL" and then fix the channel to match the weapon just launched. Once you launch any weapon its entry on the WPN menu goes away which can limit your ability to configure the DL13 pod. Just try not to make the mistake.

 

OK, those are a lot of words to understand things. What is the right way to deliver one? Thankfully that is much easier.

 

• Press A/G Master Mode Button
  
• Press STORES "WEDL" to box with X
  
• Note which WEDL is selected, in this case STA 8
  
• Press STORES "DL13" to box
  
• "WPN" for mode menu
  
• PB 2 "WEDL" to set type Walleye and channel 008
  
• Launch Walleye from STA 8
  

 

• Press PB 6 "WEDL" to deselect weapon
  
• Press PB 6 "WEDL" to reselect weapon
  
• Launch Walleye from STA 2
  

[5ephir0th]

Thanks for so detailed explanation!