Stennis Not Illuminating

So I set up a night landing mission on the Stennis and even though I'm following the Case III landing guide on Chuck's Hornet manual (beginning with calling the ship and requesting inbound triggering the Stennis to light up the deck), the Stennis won't light up. I've tried all sorts of variations on this theme (inbound close to the boat, gear & hook down...flying directly over the boat, etc) and haven't been able to get the Stennis to light up once.

Also can't get the Stennis to reply to any of my contact requests...except, when I'm sitting on the deck awaiting takeoff :smilewink:

Is anyone else having the same problem with the Stennis?

It sounds like you are on the wrong com channel, do you have easy comms on or off?

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Easy comms off. Have tried setting and sending 127.5 FM from comm 1 in manual mode (as in Chuck's guide). Also tried manually setting in comm 2 just for fun. Have tried pre-setting them to comm1 channel 1 and comm2 channel 1 in the mission editor. Have tried calling with both RAlt-\ and RCtl-\. Even tried with the Stennis both activating TACN and ILCS in the mission editor as it's first actions and not. Tried while on final approach with both gear and hook down. Tried from over 10nm's out. Seriously I've tried everything I can think of and the Stennis doesn't respond to any of my calls so obviously doesn't light up.

As I mentioned the only time I can communicate and get an answer from the Stennis is when I'm sitting on the deck :helpsmilie:

So I'm willing to bet you aren't on the correct frequency. Check to see what you set it to in the mission editor and go to that frequency in the plane.

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I've done that...set it to the default 127.5Mhz FM in mission editor...no joy. I'm also able to contact airfields successfully by manually setting comm1 and comm2 during the flight. Everything works but the Stennis...there's definitely something wrong here.

Do you have a full moon by any chance?

^ Not that I've noticed.

I would make a new mission and try again. Don't add any scripts and do a simple mission with carrier and hornet only and see if it responds. I have not heard of problems with the carrier not responding. Now the lights don't turn on until a few miles away and they seem to be dimmer now then in the past, so I don't see the deck lines until under a mile now which is more realistic then the bright lights in the past.

Got it working, which is great! Though it doesn't make much sense :huh:

Decided it would be wise to open one of the DCS provided missions and see if I had the same problem there compared with the missions I created myself. Opened the "FA-18C/Missions/QuickStart/Caucasus FA-18C Case I Carrier" mission in the mission editor. Gave it a try and I was finally able to communicate with the Stennis! Changed the start time to 11pm and gave it another go and after accepting my inbound request the lights came on!

To learn why the Stennis comms/lights in my missions weren't working and this one was, I went through all the details between my mission and this quickstart mission and found 1 big difference. In the mission editor, the properly working mission had the Stennis comm set to 127.5Mhz AM not FM. Tested this by changing the Stennis setting in the mission editor to FM and it wouldn't answer. Changed it back to AM and it consistently worked. Went to my mission that wasn't working and changed the Stennis to AM in the mission editor and it now also worked.

Went back and reviewed the latest version of Chuck's Hornet Guide and saw that his Case III Recovery tutorial also was setting the Stennis to AM in the mission editor (as shown on pg 316) - a small but apparently huge thing I originally had wrong :doh:

I'm very happy to have it working, but this doesn't make sense because everything I read researching this on the forum said the Stennis was 127.5Mhz FM not AM. Strange that setting the Stennis to AM in the mission editor, but setting my comm1 to 127500 FM in the Hornet is what works. I'm just happy I have it working, but it would be very informative if anyone could explain why this works :smilewink:

That frequency is definitely VHF, which is AM. The FM radios are not normally used for ATC because they don't have very good range. ATC functions are normally carried out on UHF or VHF radios and are AM.

Thanks for the explanation, that makes sense :thumbup:

Also found a page in Chuck's Guide that shows 127.5Mhz is in the AM only range which explains why in the mission editor if the Stennis is at 127.5 it must also be set to AM. Just for fun changed the Stennis to 156Mhz FM in the mission editor and ran the same mission. I changed comm1 to manual mode, punched in 156000 FM and was able to communicate with the Stennis over FM just fine :smilewink:

Still bizarre that there are so many old threads saying the Stennis must be contacted at 127.5 FM

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=211200

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=208504

Oh well...thanks to all who responded...I learned a lot I didn't know about Hornet radio comms ;)