Comms issue in flight.

[Wicked.-]

I was flying a campaign mission earlier, just a simple HAVCAP and was unable to check in at steerpoint on the check in frequency and unable to contact AWACS tactical. I was using the correct frequencies and verified AWACS was up. The weird thing is when I attempted to check in or get a picture, I did not hear the radio call from my pilot to AWACS and did not receive a reply. However, when I called my wingman to fence, I heard my pilot give the call and got a response.
I wrote down the frequencies from the brief and entered them manually. Another oddity was after I manually input a frequency I could no longer use the presets. I could rocker through them all the way to 20 and see the frequencies but upon pressing enter, it retained the last manually entered frequency.
I’m just getting back into flying BMS so it’s possible I may need to update my comms procedures.
Comments and suggestions welcome.

[Wicked.-]

@Wicked All is working fine. The problem was not using the right comms menu item with the selected frequency.
Thanks for the help!

[MaxWaldorf]

What was your distance to the awacs?
Were you on U6?
Did you do the click dance before commit?

[SoBad]

@Wicked said in Comms issue in flight.:

I was flying a campaign mission earlier, just a simple HAVCAP and was unable to check in at steerpoint on the check in frequency and unable to contact AWACS tactical. I was using the correct frequencies and verified AWACS was up. The weird thing is when I attempted to check in or get a picture, I did not hear the radio call from my pilot to AWACS and did not receive a reply. However, when I called my wingman to fence, I heard my pilot give the call and got a response.
I wrote down the frequencies from the brief and entered them manually. Another oddity was after I manually input a frequency I could no longer use the presets. I could rocker through them all the way to 20 and see the frequencies but upon pressing enter, it retained the last manually entered frequency.
I’m just getting back into flying BMS so it’s possible I may need to update my comms procedures.
Comments and suggestions welcome.

1. BEFORE going into the Briefing, FIRST click the mission and then click a seat in that flight so that your callsign is displayed. That will alter the frequencies you subsequently see in the Briefing.

2. Before committing to ‘Fly’, again click the mission, your seat in the flight, and the DTC icon. When the DTC displays, click ‘Comm > Comm Plan’, then ‘IFF > IFF Plan’, then ‘Save’.

[Wicked.-]

@SoBad Thanks for the tip. I went through all the steps posted above and as I said, I was able to contact my Wingman with no issues. I was also able to contact tower for approach and landing. It was the AWACS frequencies that seemed to not work AND prevent me from making a call.
Even if I were to manually input an incorrect frequency, I would expect to hear my avatar voice make the radio call. For whatever reason it worked for all but 363.050 “Check In” and 253.675 Tactical. I’ll try again later this evening.

[Quasi_Stellar]

@Wicked look in the ATO and see if the AWACS is airborne and on station Sunrise during your flight.

[Wicked.-]

@Quasi_Stellar Will check next time I fly that mission, I did figure out why I wasn’t selecting the preset frequencies though. I was using the rocker to change the presets and then hitting enter instead of dobber down to the preset number box and changing it there.
I had other comms issues in a different mission afterward. I called inbound to tower and they came back and told me to call 30 miles out. The second time I called in, silence. I didn’t hear my pilot call in or get a response from the tower.
A couple other issues I had were

1. My drift C/O switch will not move when clicking on it with left or right mouse click. This is constant now.
2. The event list did not record that I dropped 6 Mk20’s in the post flight brief when I visually saw them fall and impact the target. It should have at least recorded a miss. Probably something to do with flying in VR… I’ll keep testing.
   I did hear the sunrise call which means I was on the correct freq and in range… weird.

[Quasi_Stellar]

@Wicked AWACS, I believe broadcast Sunrise/Sunset over Guard now. So you may be hearing different ones than you think. But a good thing to cross check your debrief with available AWACS in the ATO prior to flight. Clear Skies…

[Snake122]

@Wicked Did your air to air datalink (if used) work on U6/whatever you thought was AWACS? AI will only use the the “right” tactical frequency for that. If you did get those transmissions, AWACS just hadn’t sunrised.

[Wicked.-]

@Snake122 Comms, I still had issues using the check in channel but Tactical worked like a champ.
When coming back I called tower and he said I’m not in the Queue so I switched to the approach freq and asked for permission to land, crickets. My pilot didn’t say anything nor did the tower. However, I noticed when hitting T to cycle through the options that at the top of the window it said tower for the first 2 presses and then changed to approach on the third press with other options. So, I’m guessing I need to not only be on the right freq but also be on the right tower page when asking for approach, departure, ground and the like,
I know RTFM The last time I flew BMS was 2018 so I’m rusty. Also, the Viper in DCS has dumbed me down a bit lol. That said, can anyone confirm that that was probably the issue?
Thanks for help!
I fixed my Drift C/O switch by assigning it to a switch on my throttle,
I dropped some Rockeye’s again and got some kills as well.

[Wicked.-]

@Wicked All is working fine. The problem was not using the right comms menu item with the selected frequency.
Thanks for the help!

[b0bl00i]

@Wicked @MaxWaldorf
I have to chime in as well. I have the exact same problem. Not getting a reply from awacs when checking in.

I arrive at my station steer point, at channel 5 labeled check in (all according to the comm plan) and use Q followed by check in. I get no reply even though I heard sunrise on channel 6. This worked in previous versions. I’ve also done the click dance, all other comms are working.

It’s the same in all campaigns I’ve tried so far (Korea and Balkans) coop and single player.

[Snake122]

@b0bl00i that’s normal as of the past few releases as discussed in the Comms manual:
“#5 Tactical (AWACS) check in (not yet implemented in BMS)”…
"… Please note that the following options are not implemented yet:

• Check-In

• Check-Out"

Check in previously was a bit of a different game mechanism in that it could start the clock rolling on your CAP vultime and check out could get you a higher mission rating if you were Winchester and needed to RTB early. I don’t know if those are still tied to that from the old code or just now not implemented placeholders.

I would say that channel 5 is useful because you will hear other AI package members outside of your flight’s calls to AWACS.

[b0bl00i]

@Snake122 Thanks for that! I’ve yet to learn the structure of the documentation.

[Wicked.-]

@Snake122 said in Comms issue in flight.:

@b0bl00i that’s normal as of the past few releases as discussed in the Comms manual:
“#5 Tactical (AWACS) check in (not yet implemented in BMS)”…
"… Please note that the following options are not implemented yet:

• Check-In

• Check-Out"

Check in previously was a bit of a different game mechanism in that it could start the clock rolling on your CAP vultime and check out could get you a higher mission rating if you were Winchester and needed to RTB early. I don’t know if those are still tied to that from the old code or just now not implemented placeholders.

> I would say that channel 5 is useful because you will hear other AI package members outside of your flight’s calls to AWACS.

Agreed. Hearing the other packages calls to AWACS will take your SA to a whole other level over time. You’ll find you’re turning into a bandit, without consciously thinking about it, based on a bullseye call you weren’t really paying attention to lol. If there’s one thing that’s kept me flying Falcon for 24 years now that’s it.