ATC not responding

[SnyggOlle]

Hi,

Haven’t been flying DCS for a long period but I’m now starting it up again. Using Kola map with Spitfire/Instant action/Hot Start Runway, for practicing start and landing. Have tried to contact home base Olenya ATC (131.400)  with no response (e.g. Inbound, Request Azimuth). Have tried both with and without Simplified Communication checked.

I notice the same issue in Normandy Map/Instant action/Dogfight (Longues-sur-Mer home base). No problem communicating with Wingman.

Can’t remember I had this problem before. Grateful for any help!

[_Hoss]

I can't get the tower to talk to me on WWII maps either. I go to the map and it tells me what frequency the tower is transmitting on, but there is no channel list for the in cockpit radio. I'll fly around the field and tell the tower "inbound", "request landing, and no response, on any channel. I guess I should go into the mission editor and see if the mission even has comms turned on. And on the cold start missions you can't get permission to start engine, taxi, or take off. 

I know I'm using the correct transmit function because it's all on Voice attack and works on missions with jets. 

It is what it is I reckon........

Edited June 10 by _Hoss

[SnyggOlle]

I have browsed several topics in the forums on similar ATC issues, without finding any solution to my problem so far. If there is one out there, I would be very grateful if somebody could give me a hint where to look. Or is it just a bug, not yet taken care of?

[Yurgon]

On 6/10/2025 at 8:00 PM, SnyggOlle said:

Using Kola map with Spitfire/Instant action/Hot Start Runway, for practicing start and landing. Have tried to contact home base Olenya ATC (131.400)  with no response (e.g. Inbound, Request Azimuth).

I don't know the Spitfire very well; aren't the radio channels A through D preconfigured prior to startup? In the mission editor, neither of these 4 is set to the tower frequency in this particular mission. Easy communications will tune to the proper freq prior to a transmission, but I'm not sure if that also works in aircraft without cockpit selectable frequencies.

Either way, in this mission it seems you're simply not supposed to talk to the tower.

When I edit a copy of the mission and set one of the presets to the correct freq, the tower responds just fine.

[_Hoss]

Well, these are quick missions designed by the developers (Cold, dark engine start), so you would think they would have set the radios to work like they were intended to, so that you can call for engine start, taxi, and takeoff permissions. It's a royal pain to have to fix things that should not be broken to start with. 

 

Edited June 11 by _Hoss

[razo+r]

1 hour ago, _Hoss said:

Well, these are quick missions designed by the developers (Cold, dark engine start), so you would think they would have set the radios to work like they were intended to, so that you can call for engine start, taxi, and takeoff permissions. It's a royal pain to have to fix things that should not be broken to start with. 

 

Well, technically, they didn't ask for startup, taxi and takeoff back then. The current radio options are for modern aircraft and not WWII era aircraft. So in that sense, there is nothing to fix as the radio was not commonly used for ground ops.

Edited June 11 by razo+r

[MAXsenna]

Well, these are quick missions designed by the developers (Cold, dark engine start), so you would think they would have set the radios to work like they were intended to, so that you can call for engine start, taxi, and takeoff permissions. It's a royal pain to have to fix things that should not be broken to start with. 
 

I believe the frequencies of the maps changes with every update. So if the mission is not updated, it's broken.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[draconus]

On 6/12/2025 at 12:46 AM, MAXsenna said:

I believe the frequencies of the maps changes with every update.

Some may be changed but it's a very rare case.

On 6/12/2025 at 12:42 AM, razo+r said:

The current radio options are for modern aircraft and not WWII era aircraft.

Afaik modern USAF/USN pilots don't ask for eninge start either

Agree with @_Hoss - missions should have these freqs preconfigured properly.

[SnyggOlle]

Quote

On 6/11/2025 at 11:03 PM, Yurgon said:

I don't know the Spitfire very well; aren't the radio channels A through D preconfigured prior to startup? In the mission editor, neither of these 4 is set to the tower frequency in this particular mission. Easy communications will tune to the proper freq prior to a transmission, but I'm not sure if that also works in aircraft without cockpit selectable frequencies.

Either way, in this mission it seems you're simply not supposed to talk to the tower.

When I edit a copy of the mission and set one of the presets to the correct freq, the tower responds just fine.

 

Thank you all for your response! With an edited copy of the mission, assigning the correct frequencies to the radio, it worked fine! Hopefully the Instant Action missions will be updated with the correct frequencies set when the new ATC system is implemented.

Edited June 13 by SnyggOlle

[_Hoss]

I know in operations during WWII they avoided using radios during start up, taxi , and take offs, they used flares. But on the DCS WWII maps if you start to taxi after you start engines without permission the tower says, "Hey, what are you doing"... so the radios are needed. Ergo,you can't tell the tower you're inbound, or ask permission to land either.

It's the small things they overlook that tend to be annoying for me.