F-4 Comms Operational Question

[Focha]

Hi there,

Just a simple question… how did the pilots communicate with the F-4E?

With only one radio, how did the flights communicate with exterior forces and with each flight member?

Probably, they had different communication policies/rules, but I am interested to know how they did it, if anyone has some material.

Thank you kindly.

[Zabuzard]

They would have the flight on COM and the other forces and commands on AUX for receive-only.
Then, when needing to talk to the AUX people, they would have these channels on COM as well and switch there quickly for talking.

A neat trick was to setup for example channel A on COM and B on AUX of the pilot and for the WSO the other way around, channel B on COM and A on AUX.
That way, by simply clicking the COMMAND button, one could swap talkinh between both channels by transferring which panel is in command and always still listen to both channels.

[Tarres]

One question, the radio selector marks the aux as an ADF receiver when the main is in TR position, so the aux is giving ADF data to the HSI (no audio signal, the receiver is using the ADF antenna to provide DF data). Only when the selector is the ADF for the main receiver, the aux is out of ADF function and in the receiver position (using the "radio antenna" instead of the ADF antenna). If you can receive audio signal AND send ADF data to the HSI, some positions of the knob doesn´t make sense.

 

[Dominik96]

The ADF mode indeed allows for both navigational data (direction finding to steer the aircraft) and audio reception. The audio from the ADF frequency is played through the system in this mode, so you can listen to radio transmissions while receiving navigation data simultaneously. If you're confused about which knob positions do not seem to make sense, please provide more details, and I'll be happy to clarify further.

[Tarres]

Thanks. 
 Maybe I don’t understood the radio diagram of the uhf set. The “pull DF off” knob gets me wrong.

Edited June 17 by Tarres

[Kirk66]

It's pretty simple - the flight all stayed on the same freq, unless the flight lead told someone in the flight to go to a diff freq to get some information (like the weather at home base, etc) and come back to flights freq. You could use the Aux receiver to monitor other freqs (like an AWACS broadcast freq for threat warnings) but you just changed freqs as you went, everybody on the same. It got cluttered often, as you can imagine. Usually only the lead would talk to any agency. Here are some procedures from the 70th TFS at Moody AFB in the late 70s:

We didn't have a private "chat" freq like the kids today. At most, lead might direct the flight to a freq to discuss something, using a less-used freq. "go cheap suit" was 299.500; "go winchester" was 303.000, "go springfield" was 300.600, for example.

nullAnd there was always Navy Common, 243.000.

Vulturenull

On 6/17/2024 at 5:46 AM, Tarres said:

Thanks. 
 Maybe I don’t understood the radio diagram of the uhf set. The “pull DF off” knob gets me wrong.

 

UHF ADF was a legacy system that was almost never used by the time the F-4 was in service. It could give you a bearing to a cooperating emitter, but thats about it. Just put the UHF mode in TR+G and you are good to go, Aux will be in a receive mode for whatever aux channel is selected, main on whatever preset or manual is selected, and guard receiver is on.

Vulture

[skywalker22]

Are there only UHF frequencies on F-4E and no VHF?

[Tarres]

Only UHF.

[Kirk66]

On 6/17/2024 at 5:46 AM, Tarres said:

Thanks. 
 Maybe I don’t understood the radio diagram of the uhf set. The “pull DF off” knob gets me wrong.

 

If you mean the UHF mode selection knob, labelled OFF/PULL/GD, it just means that the knob has to be pulled out to turn it to the OFF or GUARD positions, to prevent inadvertently switching your UHF transmitter off or to guard (243.0) when changing modes without looking at the knob. All other positions keep you on the selected comm freq.

Vulture