DCS-SimpleRadio Standalone

The fact you're adding more radios for tac is awesome. Having only three can be a little restrictive at times.

If reducing the size can cause issues, make it some option? Having stutters? Use the large buffers option. Otherwise default small(er) ones.

 

E: Maybe ASIO(4all) would be a good way to get the lowest latency.

Yeah I currently use wave in and wave out but going to try asio this weekend. Will try to make it an option under advanced where you can try different options as I think asio isn't supported by all sound cards.

Need to do some more research.

Can someone explain me how the 'Line of Sight' and the 'Distance Limitations' works in 1.5.4? Does it means that propagation of radio waves are somehow simulated?

Can someone explain me how the 'Line of Sight' and the 'Distance Limitations' works in 1.5.4? Does it means that propagation of radio waves are somehow simulated?

Exactly that, the wave propagation is modelled but for ease the transmission is assumed to radiate in all directions perfectly.

If two planes have a direct line of sight the distance is calculated and then using the friis equation the received power is calculated. If the received power is greater than -90dBm then the transmission can be heard and you'll hear it.

Example with working shown below. Remember distance also includes the difference in height if aircraft are not co altitude.

 

So we have two Aircraft Transmitting with Line of Sight

 

Distance: 1000m (calculated by SRS)

 

Rx Antenna Gain: 1 dBm

Tx Antenna Gain: 1 dBm

 

Frequency: 100 MHz (taken from Radio)

 

Wavelength: 2.9979m

 

Transmission power: 10Watts / 40 dBm (From https://tsc-60.cellmail.com/tsc-60/TSC-118/rtn_ncs_products_arc164_pdf.pdf)

 

Therefore with Friis equation: Received power is -30.4434 dBm and can be easily heard by the receiver

 

Radio Sensitivity is down to: -101dBm (again from link above)

 

Handy calculator here: http://www.everythingrf.com/rf-calculators/friis-transmission-calculator

 

So the defaults for all transmissions for now will be:

 

10 W transmitter

Rx Antenna Gain: 1 dBm

Tx Antenna Gain: 1 dBm

Rx Sensitivity: -90 dBm

 

Each transmission will have its received power calculated based on the Friis equation with the correct frequency and distance taken into account

 

Edit: Reducing Sensitivity to -90dBm to simulate some loss

Thanks for your explanation - i couldn't find it earlier.

Does the terrain have any impact on radio transmission? If not, will it be modeled in future?

Thanks for your explanation - i couldn't find it earlier.

 

Does the terrain have any impact on radio transmission? If not, will it be modeled in future?

Yes it determines line of sight. One page back... :)

 

Distance Limit - For every transmission, the power of the received transmission is calculated (Friis Equation) based on radio power and the transmitting frequency. If the received transmission is under -90dBm, the transmission wont be heard. This setting is server side enforced.

 

Line of Sight - Line of sight between the player and all other players is calculated ever 0.2 seconds or so. If you're transmitting and dive into a valley, you may find transmissions cut off mid sentence! :) Again server side enforced. The line of sight is actually slightly offset above the aircraft to simulate radio waves slightly bending around the edge of the terrain

Yes it determines line of sight. One page back... :)

Ohhh my fault ;)

If it gets too complicated with the ASIO stuff perhaps you could/should focus more on the other stuff. Static/noise, roger beeps, JTAC etc.etc.

If it gets too complicated with the ASIO stuff perhaps you could/should focus more on the other stuff. Static/noise, roger beeps, JTAC etc.etc.

Had a go, unless you've got a good audio card there aren't ASIO drivers you can just use with NAudio in C#. I've tuned the buffers a bit and I'm going to add some more settings so people can tweak if they wish.

Hey Ciribob, sending this PURELY for inspiration purposes. :music_whistling:

 

First short vid (45 secs) I'm using two programs here: Aries (mic clicks, distance effects, LoS). The second was Crosstalk to produce the radio voice effect. In this vid I'm listening to comms ~100nm away on Victor.

 

 

Second vid, same flight, but I'm now within 500ft of the speaker.

 

 

Again.... again... purely inspiration ;)

 

Of course, we had to stop using Aries for the known stability issues, but alas, quality was pleasing. There's also plenty of really good Youtube BMS examples of solid "effects" should you be so inclined.

Thats actually really helpful :)

Ciribob,

 

Here are some KY-58 and ARC-164 tones for you.

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2087560/KY58_ARC164_TONES.zip

 

There are TX and RX example for the KY-58 comms to demonstrate how the sounds fit.

Thanks again for these Eddie, I'm working on getting these in to the next release along with the Gazelle Intercom. Might also have the PTT tones as well. :)

Quick Summary of Next Release - Likely next weekend:

• Optimise Buffer sizes to reduce latency
  
• Add KY-58 Encryption and Decryption Audio for all Encrypted Transmissions
  
• Add Mic click
  
• Add end of transmission click (is there a proper name for this?)
  
• Add Gazelle Intercom
  

After that (might change):

• Connection history and favourites system
  
• Noise due to transmission distance. As distance increases, noise will increase and voice volume will decrease
  

Hope the Line of Sight system is working well for everyone! :)

Quick Summary of Next Release - Likely next weekend:

• Optimise Buffer sizes to reduce latency
  
• Add KY-58 Encryption and Decryption Audio for all Encrypted Transmissions
  
• Add Mic click
  
• Add end of transmission click (is there a proper name for this?)
  
• Add Gazelle Intercom
  

 

After that (might change):

• Connection history and favourites system
  
• Noise due to transmission distance. As distance increases, noise will increase and voice volume will decrease
  

 

Hope the Line of Sight system is working well for everyone! :)

That sounds wonderful Ciribob. And yes, the LoS is working as expected. :thumbup:

Add end of transmission click (is there a proper name for this?)

Maybe you could append a bit of louder noise where the squelch would kick in. Or did you have plans for the squelch already? :)

Thanks again for these Eddie, I'm working on getting these in to the next release along with the Gazelle Intercom. Might also have the PTT tones as well. :)

 

Quick Summary of Next Release - Likely next weekend:

• Optimise Buffer sizes to reduce latency
  
• Add KY-58 Encryption and Decryption Audio for all Encrypted Transmissions
  
• Add Mic click
  
• Add end of transmission click (is there a proper name for this?)
  
• Add Gazelle Intercom
  

 

After that (might change):

• Connection history and favourites system
  
• Noise due to transmission distance. As distance increases, noise will increase and voice volume will decrease
  

Hope the Line of Sight system is working well for everyone! :)

Not so well.

Just yesterday, our pilots going in to the air (me being one of them - A) encountered a rather nasty thing that in my opinion (but I can stand corrected) should not happen.

I believe that image will serve best:

A had clear comms with B

C had clear comms with B

A and C had no comms until C was approaching taxiway golf (out of LOLA on charlie)

Not so well.

Just yesterday, our pilots going in to the air (me being one of them - A) encountered a rather nasty thing that in my opinion (but I can stand corrected) should not happen.

 

I believe that image will serve best:

A had clear comms with B

C had clear comms with B

A and C had no comms until C was approaching taxiway golf (out of LOLA on charlie)

 

Hi Nu-NRG, as far as I can see all the above would be correct and expected at this stage of SR development but then of course I'm not Cb...

A <> B should be in comms. LOS is taken from a point above the aircraft to simulate terrain bending. The barriers between the aircraft may not be seen as 'terrain'. So A <> B Comms is good.

A <> C comms are terrain masked as you clearly marked and then you get COMMS when unmasked, again as expected with LOS calculations. How Cb's calculations mimic RL is another issue. Looking at the image for A <> C when masked and very roughly comparing to RL and minimal antenna gain if any, VHF probably would get through okay but UHF could may well not. But of course freq and modulation are not truly in the mix yet.

That sounds pretty odd. Would you mind posting your DirectX Diagnostic file? (http://wizards.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1271)

 

Could you also post a screenshot of the SRS client window with all the input choices listed?

 

Hi Ciribob, Sorry for the late response, attached are the DirectX diagnostic file and a screenshot of the SRS client window. Thanks you for your help.

DxDiag.txt

Perfect!!!

 

 

Not so well.

Just yesterday, our pilots going in to the air (me being one of them - A) encountered a rather nasty thing that in my opinion (but I can stand corrected) should not happen.

 

I believe that image will serve best:

A had clear comms with B

C had clear comms with B

A and C had no comms until C was approaching taxiway golf (out of LOLA on charlie)

 

Weirdly that shows the LOS system is working exactly right as your transmissions would be missing each other completely as Gizzy says.

Whether that's correct IRL behaviour, I don't know and I assume not (lots of reflection as you're very close) but I can tweak the amount of "bend" on the radio waves.

Would you mind doing an experiment for me?

If you open up your DCS-SimpleRadioStandalone.lua in the scripts directory, check this line:

https://github.com/ciribob/DCS-SimpleRadioStandalone/blob/master/Scripts/DCS-SimpleRadioStandalone.lua#L302

 table.insert(_result,{id = _client.id, los = terrain.isVisible(SR.lastKnownPos.x,SR.lastKnownPos.y+3.0,SR.lastKnownPos.z,_client.x,_client.y+3.0,_client.z) })

You'll see there are two +3.0 in the line. Change those to +5.0 and get your friend to transmit again and see if you can hear him. Make sure to reload the mission if you make changes so DCS picks up the changes.

That +3 is a point 3 meters above the center point of your aircraft and if you find a better value that works, say +5.0 then I'll add that in the next release for a little more radio bending :)

Annoyingly, there is now way to determine how far off Line of sight you are, just whether you have LOS or not without doing a lot more calculations and slowing down DCS.

Hi Ciribob, Sorry for the late response, attached are the DirectX diagnostic file and a screenshot of the SRS client window. Thanks you for your help.

Thanks I'll take a look! Just from the screenshot, I see you have an occulus rift, have you tried using that microphone instead and disabling the other one on the sound panel in windows (so its not even listed as an option to SRS)?

Sorry for the trouble

Thanks I'll take a look! Just from the screenshot, I see you have an occulus rift, have you tried using that microphone instead and disabling the other one on the sound panel in windows (so its not even listed as an option to SRS)?

 

Sorry for the trouble

Yea i tried disabling the rift mic in the recording devices, also tried to use the rifts microphone as the source and disable the other mic, for some reason when I use the rift as a sound input it doesn't transmit at all for me, while working for team speak still. Also tried to just unplug the rift as well...but still same problem. When i speak, i can hear my self speak through after like a 1 second delay echo, while my wingman end up hearing me replay 2-3 times on their headset. Hope that helps, thanks a lot.

Yea i tried disabling the rift mic in the recording devices, also tried to use the rifts microphone as the source and disable the other mic, for some reason when I use the rift as a sound input it doesn't transmit at all for me, while working for team speak still. Also tried to just unplug the rift as well...but still same problem. When i speak, i can hear my self speak through after like a 1 second delay echo, while my wingman end up hearing me replay 2-3 times on their headset. Hope that helps, thanks a lot.

That seems very strange. What happens if you try the Preview Audio button on the DCS-SRS Client with your Rift Mic selected. Do you hear ok then?

It also sounds like somewhere you've got "Listen to microphone" ticked which is usually under the sound panel in Windows somewhere. Do you have any other audio effects software that might conflict?

There is genuinely no code other than the preview audio button that will send your audio from the mic, back to your speakers so this is very puzzling...

Update

In other news - Does this sound ok for Mic click on and off and the encryption audio?

Not got the Radio effects for Receiving in yet.

Sounds pretty cool! :)

Hi Ciribo

Will SRS be inoperative if the a/c radio device malfunctioned, e.g. battle damage or random failure

Sounds pretty cool! :)

Great! I'll work on the RX sounds which are the tricky ones... :)

Hi Ciribo

 

Will SRS be inoperative if the a/c radio device malfunctioned, e.g. battle damage or random failure

Already in for Non FC3 as DCS does it for me! The best one is a Huey. Turn on all 3 radios then fly at some soldiers, once they've hit your nose and belly you'll see that the radio frequencies are reading 0 on the overlay as they been damaged. Same for Random Failure :)

Already in for Non FC3 as DCS does it for me! The best one is a Huey. Turn on all 3 radios then fly at some soldiers, once they've hit your nose and belly you'll see that the radio frequencies are reading 0 on the overlay as they been damaged. Same for Random Failure :)

That's really cool!

:thumbup:

ASIO4ALL

Ciribob

I don't know if this helps but I use VB Voicemeeter to manage my audio and when I moved to Win10 I had to install ASIO4ALL as there weren't suitable drivers for Voicemeeter in Win10.

Perhaps there could be something in ASIO4ALL that might help.

 

In other news - Does this sound ok for Mic click on and off and the encryption audio?

 

 

The end transmission sound I think would get a little jarring after a while. Maybe it could be softened it up a tad?

Quick Summary of Next Release - Likely next weekend:

• Add KY-58 Encryption and Decryption Audio for all Encrypted Transmissions
  
• Add end of transmission click (is there a proper name for this?)
  

Great news about the KY-58 audio. I've always heard the "end of transmission click" refered to as "Squelch Tail" since it's unchecked audio from the receiver making it way to the speakers before the squelch circuits activate to stop the noise. It's more of a white noise "pop" than a "click"....

Thanks for all your hard work Ciribob!

Sierra

Great! I'll work on the RX sounds which are the tricky ones... :)

 

 

Already in for Non FC3 as DCS does it for me! The best one is a Huey. Turn on all 3 radios then fly at some soldiers, once they've hit your nose and belly you'll see that the radio frequencies are reading 0 on the overlay as they been damaged. Same for Random Failure :)

Ya know features like this are great... But a little confusing when testing in a live environment!

Last day of blue flag I was flying along in a Huey and got shot up. When I couldn't make contact with my wingman I assumed SRS had crapped out. It wasn't until we got on teamspeak I realized SR was fine...MY RADIOS WERE BOLOXED!

Well played sir...well played!

Sierra