Radio communication problems?!

[wiwa23]

Hello,

 

I looked it up on google, this forums and watched a lot of tutorials. All the tutorials explain how to input the right frequencies and talk to various assets in the sim. I fly the F18 as my ‘main/specialized plane and wan to know it whole the way including detailed radio’s.

 

I know that there is a new atc coming up, implying that it probably isn’t working correctly at the moment.

 

But I want to make sure and have following questions:

 

1. What am I doing wrong talking to airfield/tower? Which freq’s do I have to use? Out of the four options with each airfield I choose the upper ones (am, fm....right?). But I tried all the other freq’s as well when things didn’t work. But i know they are for older planes (vhs, ...). But sometimes I just can’t get the airfield/wingmen/flight to respond...

 

I can’t get them to reply my messages in a consist way. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t answer.

 

Or is it all broke and should I use ‘simplified radio settings’?

 

Any explenation or help is appreciated.

 

Regards,

 

Wiwa

[Tippis]

Towers have four frequencies, yes: VHF (in the low-to-mid hundreds MHz), UHF (in the 2–300 MHz range), VHFL (in the 20–50 MHz range) and HF (2-3 MHz range). The latter two can almost always be ignored because they are only used by a handful of old Russian planes that use preset stations — they're the mission-makers headache to get right, not the pilot's. That leads the VHF and UHF frequencies to worry about and figuring out that one is easy: which range does your radio even allow? If you're using simplified radio, the menu will simply tell you what recipient requires what frequency and dim out the ones you're not tuned to accurately.

 

The next issue you may be running into is that you're using the wrong radio (or indeed any radio) — if the higher-fidelity aircraft, you can't just pop up the comms menu and F-key away. You have to actually use the correct radio selector button (COMM 1 or COMM2 on the throttle in the Hornet) to use the radio. If you're using simplified radio, it won't matter.

 

If in doubt, use the UHF (2–300 number) on radio 1 and use the COMM 1 button.

 

A third issue that you shouldn't be having in the Hornet, but which is worth keeping in mind for other aircraft, is that you may have set up your radio to use a preset while still trying to dial in a frequency manually. Manual frequencies on older radios also requires you to be in manual mode — in the Hornet this is automated since M is just another selection on the channel list.

 

Finally, if you've been fiddling around with settings a bit too much, you may simply not have the radio in the proper transmit/receive mode. This will vary immensely from one aircraft to the next, but they almost always come with it preset correctly. In the Hornet,this once again shouldn't even be an option iirc (but I may be confusing it with the Harrier, which uses a very similar but slightly different setup).

[wiwa23]

[wiwa23]

After another flight and taking into account all of the above, everything worked as advertised. Thanks!