Iron Flag Mission 3 Radio Help - Solved

[PacFlyer23]

I bought the Iron Flag campaign to use for training, but am stumbling at the beginning of the missions with the use of radios. It starts with "... switch your UHF Radio to MAIN or BOTH position on the default frequency."

Which radio? What is the "default frequency"? Is it ATIS? 

Which radio and frequency is being used to talk to the instructor Biff? 

I thought the ARC-164 was for comms with the flight. If so, what's the frequency? 

The radio check with Biff was on 128.000 which can't be on the ARC-164.

I just did Mission 3 and was so confused with the radios and instructions to switch to the ground or tower that I lost comms with Biff. The AI continuing the mission while I was still not moving and he taxied before me and took off then crashed. 

Looking at the Kneeboard for this mission, are the numbers in [bracket] the ARC-210 assigned presets?

If so, where's Guard 1 go?

With three different radios it would be so much clearer in the training if the instruction was something like "... switch your UHF ARC-210 Radio to MAIN or BOTH position on the default frequency of 270.100 ATIS."

Any help would be appreciated as I appear to be stuck on the ground without the correct comms.

Edited December 10, 2023 by PacFlyer23

[Yurgon]

1 hour ago, PacFlyer23 said:

With three different radios it would be so much clearer in the training if the instruction was something like [...]

When the campaign was first released, the A-10C had 3 different radios: VHF AM (aka "Front"), UHF AM (aka "Mid") and VHF FM (aka "Aft"). Back then, only one radio was able to receive and transmit in the UHF radio band and everything was perfectly clear and unambiguous.

That said, the new ARC-210 replaced the front ARC-186 VHF AM and can work on the entire range of the VHF and UHF frequency bands and can even switch between AM and FM (depending on the frequency), so the ARC-210 is either called "ARC-210" or "Front".

The old ARC-164 UHF radio is still only able to work in the UHF range and is thus still called "UHF" or "Mid".

1 hour ago, PacFlyer23 said:

It starts with "... switch your UHF Radio to MAIN or BOTH position on the default frequency."

Which radio? What is the "default frequency"? Is it ATIS? 

The "UHF Radio" is the ARC-164 UHF Radio.

The default frequency is the frequency that it defaults to in the "MNL" or "manual" position, so basically when you switch it to MAIN or BOTH, it'll be on the default frequency. Anything you do to the selected frequency and it'll no longer be on the default frequency.

1 hour ago, PacFlyer23 said:

Which radio and frequency is being used to talk to the instructor Biff? 

Typically, that's the ARC-186 VHF FM radio, and you'll find the frequency in the briefing images and/or the briefing texts.

For the first radio check, particularly in the first few missions, Biff will prefer the ARC-164 UHF radio for the first set of radio comms, because the ARC-164 only requires battery and inverter, whereas the ARC-186 and ARC-210 both require either the APU + APU Generator or left/right engine + associated generator or ground power.

1 hour ago, PacFlyer23 said:

The radio check with Biff was on 128.000 which can't be on the ARC-164.

That should follow the first radio check on the ARC-164, and Biff will talk you through the steps required to get the Front radio up and running for the radio check ("Front" used to be ARC-186 AM in the A-10C module and is now the ARC-210 in the A-10C II module).

1 hour ago, PacFlyer23 said:

Looking at the Kneeboard for this mission, are the numbers in [bracket] the ARC-210 assigned presets?

Looks to be presets depending on the radio, with [1] through [7] being ARC-164 presets, the element freq probably being preset [1] on the ARC-186 VHF FM (Aft) and at the same time preset [21] on the ARC-210 (Front) and 128.000 AM being preset [22] on the ARC-210 (Front).

Edited December 10, 2023 by Yurgon

[PacFlyer23]

Thank you. This is definitely helps me make sense of these radios and the setup for this campaign. 

[PacFlyer23]

I just completed Mission 3 and verified that the Kneeboard [bracket] numbers are the presets for the ARC-210. Interesting training too, I got so focused on figuring out how to enter new waypoints and create a flight plan in the air that I missed a scheduled waypoint and ended up almost a 100 miles past it - couldn't understand why my new flight plan waypoints weren't showing on the TAD and thought I'd done something wrong with the various OSBs until I finally expanded the TAD to over 80 miles to see I'd well overshot my planned course and new waypoint circuit... no thanks to instructor Biff  

Edited December 10, 2023 by PacFlyer23

[Yurgon]

In a campaign like this, it's a bit hard to capture every deviation players might do.

Within the DCS multiplayer context I would usually allow trainee pilots to deviate and wait to see how long it takes them to figure out they're not where they're supposed to be, as long as I'm satisfied it's all safe (ie we're not violating someone else's airspace and we're still well above Joker fuel).

So you could either blame the campaign for not being realistic for allowing you to deviate as much as you did, or you could praise it for the instructor being as relaxed as he is, until he's telling you in no uncertain terms how much you screwed up during the debrief...

[Rudel_chw]

5 hours ago, PacFlyer23 said:

Thank you. This is definitely helps me make sense of these radios and the setup for this campaign. 

It helped me too, very clarifying … you could mark the post as "solution"  

[PacFlyer23]

Thanks again. I've changed the title of this threat to "solved."

The other thing that I did was go through my normal initial power startup with Battery, Battery Inverter, APU, and APU & AC Generators all on. Then turn on all three radios.