Nav radio on the 190 A8

[danielprates]

I never really stopped to fiddle with it, but today I took notice of the lorenz-type nav device on the upper-right portion of the A8's instrument panel. 

 

Interesting, unlike most equipment I am aware, the vertical needle does not seem to point to where you SHOULD go, but rather to the side you are wrongly going. Is that correct historically? 

 

Also, the vertical needle seems dead. IIRC this was supposed to be a blind-landing device, the horizontal needle giving you range to the runway. For direction finding it is not relevant, I was just curious if it works as intended or if it was left like that since it doesn't matter much. 

[Gretsch_Man]

1 hour ago, danielprates said:

Also, the vertical needle seems dead. IIRC this was supposed to be a blind-landing device, the horizontal needle giving you range to the runway. For direction finding it is not relevant, I was just curious if it works as intended or if it was left like that since it doesn't matter much. 

Yes, I heard that before also. Interestingly just yesterday, while flying in a FW Dora, I noticed that the vertical needle did move also, which took me be suprise. I haven't tried that on any other planes yet.

[[_FLAPS_]RogoRogo]

Well.. purely speaking from memory as a hint for looking it up, so I might be very wrong but AFAIK the RadioPeilKompass was not an ILS-like or supporting device.
It was purely for actually finding a location (airfield) via instrumentation by giving you and offset (not a direction to, unlike the Bendix) from and a range towards a radio beacon.
This beacon was very often not actually located directly at the airfield (especially if it was a forward airfield, like a "Feldflugplatz" or "Notfeld") but at the nearest facilities handling communication (Funkmesstruppe, Platzleitung or Luftstab aso).
Some servers even consider this when they found historical data (KOTA fe IIRC) on some of the mission maps.

Thus you navigated to a prominent location or landmark from which you would and could not be mistaken in flying towards the nearby airfield.

In Il2 the distance needle does move - sometimes. But as most of the mission maps esp. in Multiplayer have the fields extremely close to the interaction zones you do not cover any distances where it triggers it to move, most of the time.
But I am pretty sure that on this forum there are many people with more detailed knowledge and direct links to sources who might want to chime in.

 

[Gretsch_Man]

I remember a tutorial I saw on Youtube a while ago. Don't remember who made it,  but the guy claimed that only the needle giving direction was working. Thereafter I didn't pay much attention to that instrument until I acccidentally noticed that the other needle showing distance is also working.

 

Today I also checked with the Me110-G2 and the Me262, on Kuban and Rheinland maps. The needle is working on both planes/maps.

 

Don't know if the devs added this recently, but it's certainly a nice to have feature.

[Yogiflight]

This video is most likely very old. It works for quite a long time now.

13 hours ago, danielprates said:

Interesting, unlike most equipment I am aware, the vertical needle does not seem to point to where you SHOULD go, but rather to the side you are wrongly going. Is that correct historically? 

It shows your position, compared to the radio beacon. It was the other way round until about one year ago and I had asked in the 'Questions for the Developers' thread, we had back then, if it should not be the way it is now. The answer was, that it was correct the way it was. Looks like it was not.

[R6ckStar]

1 hour ago, Yogiflight said:

This video is most likely very old. It works for quite a long time now.

It shows your position, compared to the radio beacon. It was the other way round until about one year ago and I had asked in the 'Questions for the Developers' thread, we had back then, if it should not be the way it is now. The answer was, that it was correct the way it was. Looks like it was not.

that last sentence of yours had my mind brain twisted into a knot

[Retnek]

All you need to know is here:

https://www.cdvandt.org/fubl-ebl-project.htm

 

It might add to your mind brain twist, but if you go down to Fig. 13 it offers some answers.

 

Same stuff, in german:

https://www.deutscheluftwaffe.com/archiv/Dokumente/ABC/f/Funk/bordfunkgereate/Bordfunkgereate.html

 

Go down to Abb. 44 (= Fig. 44) and there's the translation:
- plane is right of the center line = dash-zone = AFN points to the right "R"

- plane is left of the center line = dot-zone = AFN points to the left "L"

 

 

Edited November 17, 2019 by JG4_Retnek
add-on

[TempestV]

Just to confirm-The LORENZ vertical needle works-but the horizontal needle doesn't. Correct?

[LukeFF]

5 minutes ago, TempestV said:

Just to confirm-The LORENZ vertical needle works-but the horizontal needle doesn't. Correct?

 

What? No. Both needles work properly.

[VR-DriftaholiC]

They both work. Use them in multiplayer to get home after every mission.

[[CPT]Crunch]

And if you pass directly over signal cone from the tower the white light inside it will flash.

[TempestV]

I must be doing something wrong then. Vertical needle points direction. But horizontal needle does nothing.

 

[Retnek]

The wonderful radio-freaks from the Netherlands made nice video on the original instrument and it's function:
 

 

If you're into old radio-technology, please take a look at the other videos. There's a lot of WW2-radio-stuff you never ever have seen in that form - working! The background-noise etc will give you some impressions how it must have been to work under those conditions. Try to imagine sitting for 8 h or more in a very small room together with that noisy radio equipment. Or flying 3-h-sorties blowing that radio-background-noise LOUD right into your head(-set) to overcome the engines noise. I'll be done just by that.

 

WW2-radios etc

Edited June 2, 2020 by Retnek

[danielprates]

5 hours ago, TempestV said:

I must be doing something wrong then. Vertical needle points direction. But horizontal needle does nothing.

 

 

When I started this thread, that was my doubt. It seems it depends on where you are flying; multiplayer, career, custom mission etc. may have different parameters set by the mission creator. There isn't anything you can do wrong as there are no radio controls in the game.

 

4 hours ago, Retnek said:

please take a look at the other videos.

 

In true geek tradition, he named his videos with mere numbers! It is tough to navigate the channel to find a video about something specific. Otherwise, a great channel.

Edited June 2, 2020 by danielprates

[Retnek]

11 hours ago, TempestV said:

I must be doing something wrong then. Vertical needle points direction. But horizontal needle does nothing.

 

Here's a simple test mission, two alternating NDB - my Fw-190 A-8 is doing fine with it. Direction and distance are ok.

ndb-test.zip

 

 

@danielprates geeks produce lovely unfashionable websites, too

https://www.cdvandt.org/

 

They implemented a "Google Custom Search", too! Enter "youtube" and it's easy to reverse-engineer the youtube-number-code! Next time I'm in the Netherlands I'll try to visit that treasury.

[TempestV]

Thanks Retnek I’ll play around with the mission.