Placed ADF Beacons only transmit briefly

[patpatpowercat]

It seems that recently something has broken/changed with user placed beacons. When tuning to an ADF that is on the map already, you get continuous transmission and bearing from the ADF needle with accompanying Morse of the emitter. However, when using a beacon placed via scripting (for example with CTLD or CSAR scripts) the beacon only transmits for 2 seconds, then stops. The ADF needle starts to move, but before it can steady on a bearing, the ADF transmitter stops, and the needle returns to default.

This occurs regardless of map and has been tested on Persian Gulf, Caucasus, and NTTR. It has been tested in the Huey, Gazelle, as well as the UH-60L mod. It seems to be broken the same way whether in a client slot or a player slot.

Here is some simple code to test this out as not working.
 

local Sound = "l10n/DEFAULT/beacon.ogg"
local Frequency = 0.820 * 1000000 -- 820kHz AM
local unit = Unit.getByName("Ground-1-1")
local Vec3 = unit:getPoint()

trigger.action.radioTransmission(Sound, Vec3, 0, false, Frequency, 1000)

Attached is a track with the Huey on the Caucasus. At Batumi, the ADF at 430Mhz is working fine. However, a beacon placed on a downed pilot just a few miles away (in LOS) only transmits for 2 seconds every 30 seconds. Also attached is a beacon.ogg for testing purposes if needed, and the .miz file.

ADF Beacon.trk

testCSAR.miz

Edited January 3, 2023 by patpatpowercat

[Apple]

Can confirm the issue is replayable for SA-342 Gazelle helicopters.

[Pikey]

Seems OK for me using the 5 lines of scripting. something else going on.

beacons.miz

[Apple]

From my testing, ADF beacons aka trasnmission must have a name now, i.e. the last paramter which was kind of optional until now, must be there:

trigger.action.radioTransmission(Sound, Vec3, 0, false, Frequency, 1000, nameofbeacon)

Then you can "renew" the ADF beacon with another trigger of the same or another name. Without name - no dice on renewal. Why do we "renew" beacons? Because in Multiplayer it was running only 30 seconds straight, then stopped, no matter if loop was true or false or how long the actual sound file was. But preliminary testing shows the looping is working now in MP, too. Cool, Good Job - but why didn't anyone tell us?

Edited January 5, 2023 by Apple

[Flappie]

On 1/5/2023 at 12:43 PM, Apple said:

 But preliminary testing shows the looping is working now in MP, too. Cool, Good Job - but why didn't anyone tell us?

It was fixed in March 2022.

 

[Apple]

Thanks @Flappieappreciated. Still, it looks the code was touched in 2.8 bc the behaviour is now different (needs a name in MP or stops after the 1st loop); any reason why this was altered?

[OzDeaDMeaT]

Is there a way to transmit audio that isnt part of the miz file? Say through SRS?

 

All good, found it here

https://github.com/ciribob/DCS-SimpleTextToSpeech

Edited November 10, 2023 by OzDeaDMeaT

[davidp57]

It's the way the CTLD JTACs talk over the radio