Radios & comms

[markturner1960]

I am used to in the Hornet just using one channel for the radio, the Apache has 5!! ….within the sim, what’s the commonly used one, IE, if a freq is given, will it generally be VHF? 
 

Also, I don’t really understand the purpose of the “standby” bit……? If you want to change freq, why not just have it change directly ? 

Edited April 8, 2022 by markturner1960

[some1]

Standby lets you have the second frequency ready and flip between them with a single button press. Easier than to type the whole frequency manually, or switch between multiple channels to find the right one. It's more common in civilian aircraft.

In DCS usually VHF and UHF are used to talk with other aircraft and tower. Others are seldom used because few aircraft have those, but every DCS airport tower has frequencies listed for every radio. The Hornet has two combined V/UHF radios.

In real life, UHF is the military aviation range, VHF AM is the civilian aviation, VHF FM is the general military band mostly used by ground troops, hence why it's useful in a helicopter meant to work closely with other units on the ground (same with A-10). HF is the general use shortwave band which allows over-the-horizon communication. 

If you're wondering which aircraft has which radio, I've included that in my spreadsheet.

https://forum.dcs.world/topic/275689-dcs-aircraft-spreadsheet-dates-equipment-capabilities/

Edited April 8, 2022 by some1

[markturner1960]

excellent, thanks for that!

[Bunny Clark]

1 hour ago, markturner1960 said:

Also, I don’t really understand the purpose of the “standby” bit……? If you want to change freq, why not just have it change directly ? 

The Standby radio frequency is a stored frequency that is essentially "on deck" and can be recalled at any time. You can program your radio to the ATC frequency for takeoff, for example, swap it to standby for the mission, then swap it back when returning for landing. You can think of it as a place to store a frequency for quick one button recall.

In my experience in civilian aviation, where most radios have a standby frequency function, you can normally directly edit the standby frequency (on many radios you can only edit the standby frequency). That allows you to pre-stage your next needed frequency when you have some free time, then swap to it quickly when needed. For example when sitting on the ground awaiting takeoff clearance from Tower, you can program in Departure to your standby, then when you're busy flying your departure route, listening to comms, and watching for traffic you can swap to Departure when instructed with the simple push of a button.

From Casmo's YouTube videos it sounds like later versions of the Apache do allow the pilot to directly edit the standby frequency, but not ours.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Bunny Clark

[markturner1960]

Cool, cheers!

[frostycab]

Following up on the reference to civilian aviation it is common practice when given a change to a new frequency it will be tuned on the standby frequency, not the active, and then swapped over. This way if there is no response on the new frequency or you've set the wrong one you will still have the last frequency available to swap back to in order to confirm or get new instructions. Its a sort of failsafe procedure so you don't forget the channel you just came from. I don't think you can do this in most of the DCS aircraft though.

[Frederf]

In the Cessna it was how the radio changes were done. Rotate the knobs to adjust the standby freq then the flip-flop button to exchange the standby and active. The only way to change the primary was to flop in a standby. Because it was a knob and not a type-it-in you couldn't instantly change over if you were altering the primary directly. The absolutely most significant benefit is the ability to plan ahead. You set your radios in the future whenever you could. Especially with someone else to help you they'd be dialing in the frequency as the controller told it to you or as needed.

The Apache can do either direct or swap adjustment based on a setting on the COM MPD page. I'm looking forward to setting it on standby tune mode.