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TACAN GOING CRAZY (Spinning round and round)


Mezsh

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I'm having major problems with A2A TACAN in the Harrier. It seems to work fine for ground targets, and works fine for SOME A2A Targets, but on the latest Air-To-Air training mission, with the missiles it asks you to take off and find the Hornet whish is on TACAN 11x and then it says set your own TACAN to Channel 74X (Eh? how do you do this?!). Anyway, when I set the TACAN to either channel, the tacan bearing pointer on the HUD and EHSI just go nuts, spinning round and round in circles, with no range indication. I've tried everything, yes it's all set up correctly, but it's not working. I'm having the same problem even after completely re-installing DCS World. I've also contacted Razbam and had no reply. Somebody else had the same issue, and as far as I can tell, it wasn't resolved as the people on the thread changed the subject and started talking about which aircraft do and don't have TACAN, etc etc (es, very helpful when the question was specifically related to the Harrier TACAN). I'm pulling my hair out here... any ideas?

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I'm having major problems with A2A TACAN in the Harrier. It seems to work fine for ground targets, and works fine for SOME A2A Targets, but on the latest Air-To-Air training mission, with the missiles it asks you to take off and find the Hornet whish is on TACAN 11x and then it says set your own TACAN to Channel 74X (Eh? how do you do this?!). Anyway, when I set the TACAN to either channel, the tacan bearing pointer on the HUD and EHSI just go nuts, spinning round and round in circles, with no range indication.

 

Your question is Harrier and Training Mission specific, so should have been be posted in the Razbam>AV-8B N/A>Training Missions section.

 

Air to air TACAN between fighters can only give distance (as fighters are too small to mount the TACAN directional antenna), hence the spinning EHSD direction arrow i.e. it's normal/correct behaviour.

 

When tuning air to air TACAN between fighters, the paired channels are 63 channels apart i.e. if the Hornet is on 11X you should be on 11+63X = 74X, this is because although you are transmitting on channel 74X, you are listening 63 channels lower (or transmitting, I forget which it is).

 

As well as being on the right channel/band, you'll want the tacan to be in A/A mode, so it's listening on the right frequencies..

 

Here the Hornet is 0.1 NM away, as I fly off it's right wing :-

 

57E1WTe.jpg


Edited by Ramsay
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To find the Hornet Look at the Distance indicated by TACAN and turn slowly into one direction until the distance increases or decreases, when it decreases monitor the heading and as soon as it increases again turn back 5° to the last heading where it decreased. Adjust from there whenever distance increases again.

Shagrat

 

- Flying Sims since 1984 -:pilotfly:

Win 10 | i5 10600K@4.1GHz | 64GB | GeForce RTX 3090 - Asus VG34VQL1B  | TrackIR5 | Simshaker & Jetseat | VIRPIL CM 50 Stick & Throttle | VPC Rotor TCS Plus/Apache64 Grip | MFG Crosswind Rudder Pedals | WW Top Gun MIP | a hand made AHCP | 2x Elgato StreamDeck (Buttons galore)

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To find the Hornet Look at the Distance indicated by TACAN and turn slowly into one direction until the distance increases or decreases, when it decreases monitor the heading and as soon as it increases again turn back 5° to the last heading where it decreased. Adjust from there whenever distance increases again.

 

The Hornet is flying a similar flight path between WP 1 and WP 2 as the Harrier in the training mission, provided the OP flies at the instructed 15,000 ft altitude and follows the flight plan, he should easily spot the Hornet at 3-4 NM and be able to form up.

i9 9900K @4.7GHz, 64GB DDR4, RTX4070 12GB, 1+2TB NVMe, 6+4TB HD, 4+1TB SSD, Winwing Orion 2 F-15EX Throttle + F-16EX Stick, TPR Pedals, TIR5, Win 10 Pro x64, 1920X1080

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First of all, apologies for posting on the wrong thread, I'm very new at this and I made a genuine mistake. My Bad, apologies. Moving on... With the greatest of respect, none of you appear to have actually read what I was struggling with. The TACAN steer marker goes round and round in circles, and the distance to TACAN reads at Zero at all times, so what's even the point in giving us TACAN info if we have to rely on spotting them visually, and we have no idea of their bearing? how come the TACAN works fine for (most of) the Air-to-air refuelling missions (Range and bearing) , but not when trying to find other friendly fighters?, when it gives me neither?! My second question may possibly be where the confusion lies, how do you set your own TACAN freq? I can't find anywhere that explains this, it's only explained how to tune INTO a TACAN Freq. So, should I be tuning into 11X or 74X? How do I change what Freq I transmit on? how do I find out? I have not encountered this in any of the training missions, manuals, videos or Chuck's AV-8B guide so far. I'm totally baffled and am seriously getting to the point where I'm ready to give up on this module and ask for a full refund. Secondly, sometimes when trying to land on the carrier, the TACAN symbol is over to my 10 O' clock, but looking out the cockpit window, the Carrier as actually at my 2 O' clock. WTF?!? I'm running a brand new syste, and am running a fresh install of the entire game.

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Moving on... With the greatest of respect, none of you appear to have actually read what I was struggling with. The TACAN steer marker goes round and round in circles, and the distance to TACAN reads at Zero at all times, ... and we have no idea of their bearing?

 

As I explained in my initial post, the spinning needle is expected because the 74X A/A TACAN has no azimuth signal.

 

You should get distance info for the Hornet if TACAN is

 

• Turned ON

• Tuned to 74X

• A/A mode is enabled on ODU (Options Display Unit to the left of the UFC)

• TACAN boxed on the EHSD

 

... so what's even the point in giving us TACAN info if we have to rely on spotting them visually,

For formation flight, finding a 'lost' wingman, etc. although you can 'see' an aircraft at 1 NM, it's much harder to judge the distance i.e. you'd use TACAN if you wanted to fly 1 NM trail of the lead aircraft, in 'Deployed Echelon' - dash 2 would be at 0.7-1.2 NM from the lead, etc.

 

In this training mission, you are expected to 'join up' with Hornet and fly at a (IIRC) 1 NM spacing.

 

how come the TACAN works fine for (most of) the Air-to-air refuelling missions (Range and bearing) , but not when trying to find other friendly fighters?, when it gives me neither?!

 

Bigger aircraft, carriers, airbases, etc. can mount the larger radio equipment. Friendly fighters can give you their distance if you are using the right TACAN mode, band and channel; and they are transmitting.

 

My second question may possibly be where the confusion lies, how do you set your own TACAN freq? I can't find anywhere that explains this, it's only explained how to tune INTO a TACAN Freq. So, should I be tuning into 11X or 74X?

See my previous picture - 74X, A/A mode

How do I change what Freq I transmit on? how do I find out?

Band X or Y, A/A mode (or not) change the transmit/reply frequency pairing for the channels.

 

Secondly, sometimes when trying to land on the carrier, the TACAN symbol is over to my 10 O' clock, but looking out the cockpit window, the Carrier as actually at my 2 O' clock. WTF?!? I'm running a brand new syste, and am running a fresh install of the entire game.

Post a track if you want help re: the carrier, I can't guess at what you're doing as you don't even mention the mission you're having issues with, the EHSD is behaving strangely when overflying waypoints or when right next to the TACAN station but the Harriers navigation system is being updated ATM and likely has some WIP bugs.

Note: the 63 channel separation when using A/A TACAN is because of the way the system works - it behaves the same in the A-10C, F-5E, Hornet, Mirage 2000C, C-101, etc.

 

I'll try to upload video later of the Harrier takeoff and joining up with the Hornet.


Edited by Ramsay

i9 9900K @4.7GHz, 64GB DDR4, RTX4070 12GB, 1+2TB NVMe, 6+4TB HD, 4+1TB SSD, Winwing Orion 2 F-15EX Throttle + F-16EX Stick, TPR Pedals, TIR5, Win 10 Pro x64, 1920X1080

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Thanks for your reply, much appreciated.

 

TACAN is turned on, set to A/A, Set to TX/R, set to "On" on ODU and "TACAN" is "BOXED" on EHSD, still no Distance markers, reads 0.0, bearing pointer just spinning round and round. Completely useless.

 

 

 

I'll try and get a track file for the carrier thing if I can remember which mission it was that I was doing.

 

 

 

I'd very much appreciate it if you could do the Harrier takeoff and Hornet joining up video, I have no idea how to do it without the TACAN working and giving a range. Many thanks for taking the time to reply, it's very much appreciated, thank you.

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The Hornet is flying a similar flight path between WP 1 and WP 2 as the Harrier in the training mission, provided the OP flies at the instructed 15,000 ft altitude and follows the flight plan, he should easily spot the Hornet at 3-4 NM and be able to form up.
It's always easier if you know where the other plane is beforehand, but in case you lost your wingman or need to find a Tanker, that helps to establish a very basic intercept...

Shagrat

 

- Flying Sims since 1984 -:pilotfly:

Win 10 | i5 10600K@4.1GHz | 64GB | GeForce RTX 3090 - Asus VG34VQL1B  | TrackIR5 | Simshaker & Jetseat | VIRPIL CM 50 Stick & Throttle | VPC Rotor TCS Plus/Apache64 Grip | MFG Crosswind Rudder Pedals | WW Top Gun MIP | a hand made AHCP | 2x Elgato StreamDeck (Buttons galore)

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I'd very much appreciate it if you could do the Harrier takeoff and Hornet joining up video, I have no idea how to do it without the TACAN working and giving a range.

 

Here's a video of the first half of Training Mission 18

 

 

Setting up the A/A TACAN starts at @11:00

i9 9900K @4.7GHz, 64GB DDR4, RTX4070 12GB, 1+2TB NVMe, 6+4TB HD, 4+1TB SSD, Winwing Orion 2 F-15EX Throttle + F-16EX Stick, TPR Pedals, TIR5, Win 10 Pro x64, 1920X1080

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Many thanks, Ramsay! I guess I just overestimated the capabilities of the TACAN. I just assumed that the TACAN spinning wildly was some kind of bug (as it works with ground targets and A/A refuelling), but I now know that it's normal behaviour for smaller jets. I really appreciate you taking the time to make the video, thank you very much! Incidentally, how do you record the video as you're flying? is it 3rd party software, or do you record .AVI from within the game?

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If you are running on a windows 10 machine, there is a built in record fonction for games that you can activate.

 

Then, a simple Alt+Win+G will record the last x minutes of gameplay (you can define x in the gaming bar settings or you can use a shortcut to begin to record as long as you want).

There are only two types of aircraft, fighters and targets. - Major Doyle "Wahoo" Nicholson, USMC

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... how do you record the video as you're flying? is it 3rd party software, or do you record .AVI from within the game?

I use Nvidia's 'ShadowPlay' (1080@30 fps) and then 'Shotcut' to edit/compress/encode the video further (about half the original size) before uploading the .mp4 to youtube.

 

To play .mp4 files locally, I use Media Player Classic 'MPC-HC'

i9 9900K @4.7GHz, 64GB DDR4, RTX4070 12GB, 1+2TB NVMe, 6+4TB HD, 4+1TB SSD, Winwing Orion 2 F-15EX Throttle + F-16EX Stick, TPR Pedals, TIR5, Win 10 Pro x64, 1920X1080

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