[Logged] Question re: HF/DF in CMO

[avenger300]

Hello all,

I am new to playing CMO and I am really enjoying it so far. One of the elements I'm interested in is ELINT and the gathering of battlefield intelligence.

I was excited to see that the database (DB3000 v487) contains two powerful ELINT facilities from the cold war: the HF/DF AN/FLR-9 CDAA and the HF/DF AN/FRD-10 Classic Bullseye CDAA. Basically, these are gigantic antennas that can provide bearing information (direction finding) on adversarial signals from almost anywhere in the world (the database shows the FLR-9 having a ELINT range of 4000 nm, which sounds about right). An antenna such as this located in, say, Alaska, should be able to get a rough bearing on most long-range air-defense radars in the USSR/Russia. Certainly it shouldn't have trouble picking up A and B band OTH signals. At least, that is my (admittedly amateurish) understanding.

When I test this capability in the simulation, however, the FLR-9 and FRD-10 seem almost blind to even the strongest and longest-wave radars. As an example, I plopped a Russian CAT HOUSE radar about 100 nm from both HF/DF antennas and...got nothing. This seems strange to me, as the CAT HOUSE should be pouring energy into the atmosphere in a very unmistakable way.

The HF/DF receivers have better luck detecting emissions from adversarial aircraft out to a few hundred nm, but nowhere near the thousands of miles as advertised by the database.

So, I have some questions:

1) is this behavior from HF/DF antennas expected?

2) am I wrong in my assumptions about these antennas?

3) is there some way to "debug" these facilities within the simulation to see if they are working properly?

I assume everyone on this board is much more knowledgeable and experienced about these subjects than myself. Any advice you may have is welcome. Thank you!

[CV60]

ORIGINAL: avenger300

Hello all,

I am new to playing CMO and I am really enjoying it so far. One of the elements I'm interested in is ELINT and the gathering of battlefield intelligence.

I was excited to see that the database (DB3000 v487) contains two powerful ELINT facilities from the cold war: the HF/DF AN/FLR-9 CDAA and the HF/DF AN/FRD-10 Classic Bullseye CDAA. Basically, these are gigantic antennas that can provide bearing information (direction finding) on adversarial signals from almost anywhere in the world (the database shows the FLR-9 having a ELINT range of 4000 nm, which sounds about right). An antenna such as this located in, say, Alaska, should be able to get a rough bearing on most long-range air-defense radars in the USSR/Russia. Certainly it shouldn't have trouble picking up A and B band OTH signals. At least, that is my (admittedly amateurish) understanding.

When I test this capability in the simulation, however, the FLR-9 and FRD-10 seem almost blind to even the strongest and longest-wave radars. As an example, I plopped a Russian CAT HOUSE radar about 100 nm from both HF/DF antennas and...got nothing. This seems strange to me, as the CAT HOUSE should be pouring energy into the atmosphere in a very unmistakable way.

The HF/DF receivers have better luck detecting emissions from adversarial aircraft out to a few hundred nm, but nowhere near the thousands of miles as advertised by the database.

So, I have some questions:

1) is this behavior from HF/DF antennas expected?

2) am I wrong in my assumptions about these antennas?

3) is there some way to "debug" these facilities within the simulation to see if they are working properly?

I assume everyone on this board is much more knowledgeable and experienced about these subjects than myself. Any advice you may have is welcome. Thank you!

My guess for the CAT HOUSE not being picked up is that the CAT HOUSE transmitted in the 300 MHz-3 GHZ (HF)range (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunay_radar), while the FLR-9 and FRD-10 received in the 1.5-30 or 2-32 MHz (UHF) range. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/FRD-10 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/FLR-9. Incidentally, that is one of the great thinkgs about CMO-it does model the effect of equipment frequencies.

[avenger300]

My guess for the CAT HOUSE not being picked up is that the CAT HOUSE transmitted in the 300 MHz-3 GHZ (HF)range, while the FLR-9 and FRD-10 received in the 1.5-30 or 2-32 MHz (UHF) range. Incidentally, that is one of the great thinkgs about CMO-it does model the effect of equipment frequencies.

This is a great idea and I had not considered it! I tried the same experiment but now with a lower-frequency STEEL YARD radar -- but it had the same effect. The HF/DF was blind to the radar.

I'm starting to wonder if ground-based ELINT is not capable of picking up ground-based signals for some reason? Could the simulation be coded that way?

In any event, thank you for your reply!

[Dimitris]

Thanks for the note. We're a bit pressed for time ATM but we'll take a look!

[KnightHawk75]

ORIGINAL: avenger300

My guess for the CAT HOUSE not being picked up is that the CAT HOUSE transmitted in the 300 MHz-3 GHZ (HF)range, while the FLR-9 and FRD-10 received in the 1.5-30 or 2-32 MHz (UHF) range. Incidentally, that is one of the great thinkgs about CMO-it does model the effect of equipment frequencies.

This is a great idea and I had not considered it! I tried the same experiment but now with a lower-frequency STEEL YARD radar -- but it had the same effect. The HF/DF was blind to the radar.

I'm starting to wonder if ground-based ELINT is not capable of picking up ground-based signals for some reason? Could the simulation be coded that way?

In any event, thank you for your reply!

Well you kind of can get ground to ground in limited ways, but not in anyway like you're thinking about it(ionic refraction\reflection) etc.
However you said you can't get detection more or less no matter what, are you matching the right transmitter for your receiver? The Steel Work [Duga-3] transmits on the A band. That means yup you can't pick it up with the FLR-9, because the FLR-9 only picks up MF\HF. The FRD-10 however picks up A-J and ULF,VLF,LF ( but not MF\HF).

What does all that mean, it means you can't pick up any radars with it because actually there exists no radar in the game that broadcasts very far in the MF or HF bands. You can pickup a half dozen or so very particular communication jammers with the FLR-9 that do operate in that band. But keep in mind while those jammers are not range limited directly I'm pretty sure none of them are going to reach out much beyond the target-horizon for their and the receivers elevation.

You can use the FRD-10 to listen ..up the horizon or target-horizon if you creatively elevate your "ground detectors". IE two high mountain peeks with aerostats with 4500 meter masts involved (hint) and distances not too much outside ~250nm avg. It will work if you get the horizons and what not right. It's definitely _not_ what you want, but if the geography is right in your scene you can sometimes make things work, kinda. [:)]

Also remember for the Steel Works specifically it has 160 second scan time, so you got to wait ~3minutes to pick up a detection during each location\spot testing.

Anyway that's the sometimes workaround you can use I figured it was worth mentioning if not for you than maybe others, it's just very radar\transmitter\receiver horizon limited. For example if you plop a Steelworks on an aerostat mooring say on the highest point on Hawaii (big island) making the transmitter about 28.2k feet, and you have a ship out to the west with the FRD-10 ESM, you can pick it up at about ~225nm. If you had two aero's on each side of the bearing straight, each at about ~16k (~1k elevation + ~mast height) feet with decent line of sight placement and one was stand-in for a radar and the other was stand-in for a ESM listening post, I think you'd get detection's perhaps up to about ~300nm from memory, depending on the gear.

[Rory Noonan]

0014319

[Geoffropi]

Hi,

Thanks for the report.

Actually, there were 2 issues instead of one, this is the reason why you could not detect it even at the right frequency, the DB entry is lacking OTH capabilities, so any terrain or the horizon would block the signal.
But there is also an issue with frequency comparison that has been fixed for the next versions.
So in the current version you have, it is best to avoid using HF/DF AN/FLR-9.

[avenger300]

ORIGINAL: Geoffropi

Hi,

Thanks for the report.

Actually, there were 2 issues instead of one, this is the reason why you could not detect it even at the right frequency, the DB entry is lacking OTH capabilities, so any terrain or the horizon would block the signal.
But there is also an issue with frequency comparison that has been fixed for the next versions.
So in the current version you have, it is best to avoid using HF/DF AN/FLR-9.

Thank you for looking into it! I really appreciate all the hard work that the CMANO team puts into this simulator.

[boogabooga]

ORIGINAL: CV60

ORIGINAL: avenger300

Hello all,

I am new to playing CMO and I am really enjoying it so far. One of the elements I'm interested in is ELINT and the gathering of battlefield intelligence.

I was excited to see that the database (DB3000 v487) contains two powerful ELINT facilities from the cold war: the HF/DF AN/FLR-9 CDAA and the HF/DF AN/FRD-10 Classic Bullseye CDAA. Basically, these are gigantic antennas that can provide bearing information (direction finding) on adversarial signals from almost anywhere in the world (the database shows the FLR-9 having a ELINT range of 4000 nm, which sounds about right). An antenna such as this located in, say, Alaska, should be able to get a rough bearing on most long-range air-defense radars in the USSR/Russia. Certainly it shouldn't have trouble picking up A and B band OTH signals. At least, that is my (admittedly amateurish) understanding.

When I test this capability in the simulation, however, the FLR-9 and FRD-10 seem almost blind to even the strongest and longest-wave radars. As an example, I plopped a Russian CAT HOUSE radar about 100 nm from both HF/DF antennas and...got nothing. This seems strange to me, as the CAT HOUSE should be pouring energy into the atmosphere in a very unmistakable way.

The HF/DF receivers have better luck detecting emissions from adversarial aircraft out to a few hundred nm, but nowhere near the thousands of miles as advertised by the database.

So, I have some questions:

1) is this behavior from HF/DF antennas expected?

2) am I wrong in my assumptions about these antennas?

3) is there some way to "debug" these facilities within the simulation to see if they are working properly?

I assume everyone on this board is much more knowledgeable and experienced about these subjects than myself. Any advice you may have is welcome. Thank you!

My guess for the CAT HOUSE not being picked up is that the CAT HOUSE transmitted in the 300 MHz-3 GHZ (HF)range (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunay_radar), while the FLR-9 and FRD-10 received in the 1.5-30 or 2-32 MHz (UHF) range. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/FRD-10 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/FLR-9. Incidentally, that is one of the great thinkgs about CMO-it does model the effect of equipment frequencies.

Question:

I was under the impression that CMO treated everything roughly VHF and below as all "A band." Does it further subdivide that into HF, LF, etc. in some circumstances?

[KnightHawk75]

@boogabooga
These are the divisions for frequency flags, far as I know if they exist for the db object they get used and not grouped into some other band.

Code: Select all

1001	A Band (30-250 MHz) [Old P Band (HF)] 100-300 cm
 1002	B Band (250-500 MHz) [Old P Band (VHF)] 60-100 cm
 1003	C Band (500-1000 MHz) [Old L Band (UHF)] 60-30cm
 1004	D Band (1-2 GHz) [Old L Band] 15-30 cm
 1005	E Band (2-3 GHz) [Old S Band] 10-15 cm
 1006	F Band (3-4 GHz) [Old S Band] 7.5-10 cm
 1007	G Band (4-6 GHz) [Old C Band] 5-7.5 cm
 1008	H Band (6-8 GHz) [Old C Band] 3.75-5 cm
 1009	I Band (8-10 GHz) [Old X Band] 3-3.75 cm
 1010	J Band (10-20 GHz) [Old X Band] 1.5-3 cm
 1011	K Band (20-40 GHz) [Old Ku Band] 0.75-1.5 cm
 1012	L Band (40-60 GHz) [Old Ka Band] 5-7.5 mm
 1013	M Band (60-100 GHz) [Old V/W Band] 3-5 mm
 2001	Visual Light
 2002	Near IR (0.75-8 µm)
 2003	Far IR (8-1000 µm)
 2004	Laser

Code: Select all

3001	ELF Radio (3-30 Hz)
 3002	SLF Radio (30-300 Hz)
 3003	ULF Radio (300-3000 Hz)
 3004	VLF Radio (3-30 KHz)
 3005	LF Radio (30-300 KHz)
 3006	MF Radio (300-3000 KHz)
 3007	HF Radio (3-30 MHz)
 3008	VHF Radio (30-300 MHz)
 3009	UHF Radio (300-3000 MHz)
 3010	SHF Radio (3-30 GHz)
 3011	EHF Radio (30-300 GHz)
 4001	LF Sonar (1-5 KHz, 3 KHz Center Frequency)
 4002	MF Sonar (5-10 KHz, 7.5 KHz Center Frequency)
 4003	HF Sonar (10-500 KHz, 20 KHz Center Frequency)
 4004	VLF Sonar (0-1000 Hz, 200 Hz Center Frequency)