Radio Presets

[phoenix599]

I am still learning this amazing simulation and have recently been playing with the radios.

 

Why in the world on the actual A-10C, do the radio presets not change the indicated frequency? Is it because of some kind of mechanical issue that make this too difficult?

 

It would seem to me it would be easier to remember what was what if the freq's changed. Of course, on the other hand, I guess you could always have yet another freq displayed and manually tune it, but with so many presets available...it just seems odd... :smilewink:

[Stuka]

For the UHF radio: when in preset mode, push the status button. Freq of the selected preset will be displayed for a few seconds.

[Frostiken]

Well for the most part many frequencies are always the same, and pilots all fly in the same AORs over and over so it becomes the other way around - easier to remember Channel 5 instead of 282.750 :p

 

Also keep in mind real life pilots use a lot more frequencies than we do. Here at LN, channel 1 is usually the ops desk, channel 2 is ATC ground, channel 3 is ATC air. That's already as many as you typically use on any random mission. I've not figured / bothered to figure out the rest but I imagine they have divert airfields, their own flight... there's a lot of possibilities there. If they're flying out of the same airfield their diverts are probably usually the same... whereas here you fly one mission out of one base, and the next mission out of a totally different one, which changes everything.

 

As for why it won't immediately show up, I honestly couldn't tell you. It's the same way in the F-15 too. You turn the channel knob and that's all good, and the frequency above it won't change (because it's your manual preset and you can switch between channel and manual selection), but if you have the radio page open, the frequency won't even show up there until you hit the radio page again and it updates.

 

Just blame the engineers.

Edited February 20, 2012 by Frostiken

[AlphaOneSix]

The main idea is that you don't care what the actual frequencies are, you just care who you're talking to. In other words, who cares what the frequency for Kandahar Tower is? If on every airplane, preset 1 is Kandahar Tower (and remember all the presets will be on the pilot's comm card), then who cares what the actual frequency is? Besides, if you really need it, it's on the comm card as well.

 

Newer radios with digital displays do change the display to reflect the current preset (i.e. ARC-210) but adding a mechanical mechanism to do that on older radios would have no doubt been big, bulky, heavy, and most importantly, more expensive.

[phoenix599]

Thanks for the input. Of course I understand that looking at a single or double preset number is easier to remember than trying to remember a larger freq number. I was curious about the lack of linkage between the preset number and the frequency number!

 

The other issue is that if somehow the preset freq was accidentally changed (it could happen, although remote), you wouldn't immediately know why you couldn't communicate...;)

 

Regardless, thanks for the answers. I learn something from this forum every time that I visit!:)

[_Lion_]

Thanks

[HawkMedic126]

The other issue is that if somehow the preset freq was accidentally changed (it could happen, although remote), you wouldn't immediately know why you couldn't communicate...;)

 

IMO this just adds to the realism of the sim. Having been part of several "Lost Commo" incidents I can say that it is not fun. However, part of every mission brief should be a Lost Comm Procedure. Ours included manually retuning the radio, back-up freq, switching to AM or FM, re-cycling the KY58 (on secure channels), and in the case of total comm failure...switching our lighting to bright-flash and/or using a flashlight to get the attention of another pilot. Not necessarily in that order, but you get the idea.

[Snoopy]

 

The other issue is that if somehow the preset freq was accidentally changed (it could happen, although remote), you wouldn't immediately know why you couldn't communicate...;)

 

 

We have all the presets and what their respective freq is in the pit. If for some reason the presets got changed the pilot can refer to that list to either reset the presets or set the radio(s) manually.