LOL. I’m OK but I once had a USAF MSgt SIGINTxer working for me who could whistle what different radars sounded like.
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So this guy?
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I’ve been through the manual, various online forums and tutorials as well as experimentation. I have some questions that I don’t think any of them answer…out at least I could not find the answer…
- Can the ELINT collection be turned off other by switching the system to BER after landing?
Background: According to what I have read, ELINT collection gets activated by turning the U22/A pod to controls A (selector mode) and G/H/J/K (Band mode). The manual says that selector mode 0 = off and selector mode A & Band mode F = preheat. Preheat lasts for 3 minutes (and from what I have seen you get a caution light until it is ready to go).
That would imply that setting the selector back to 0 turns off the pod…this doesn’t seem to be the case. I want to turn off the pod when I am done my ELINT collection run and not collect on friendly radars.
- Is there a maximum of ELINT targets recorded? If so, is there a priority? (i.e. SAMs before EW radars)
Background: The Max seems to be 6 and it seems to be prioritized towards SAM and other FC radars. Detecting EW radars can be just as important as collecting SAM radars. You see the time where you first detected the signal, plot that out on your track and you have a good idea of when EW radars can see you and vector fighters to you.
Also, despite my having the pod turned off, I picked up two friendly SAM radars. I had set it up so that I would turn off the pod a minute before the blue radars were activated (i.e. go from Alarm State Green to Red). This evidently didn’t work; question 1 germane.
- Are there any real differences between modes A/G to A/K
Background: Supposedly (according to the manual) mode A/G is “Low Sensitivity,” A/H and A/J are “High Sensitivity” and A/K automatically switches between A/G and A/K. Sounds great but what does “sensitivity” mean? It could mean able to detect a weaker signal or it could mean, able to differentiate lines of bearing (LOBs) with greater accuracy. In RL, High Sensitivity would come with a cost…perhaps not able to cover as wide a frequency range as Low Sensitivity.
I am trying to work up an “interesting” ELINT mission (yeah, I know that’s a tall order) where the results will mean something for follow-on missions…not having much luck. 
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The only time I used the ELINT pod was in a multiplayer mission where the only map option was the ownship icon, so I tried to use the pod to find enemy ship groups. I’ve noticed that without the pod, the ELINT page is still active, so I’m not sure if it has a wider range of functionality than the baseline sensors do.
I’d need to check the manual, but do any of the circuit breakers on the right side of the cockpit seem applicable?
It looks like the answer to Question 1 is No.
I wanted one of the challenges of the mission to only collect Red emitters - the idea was to have the Blue emitters all go off at the start of the run and go active at a specific time. Using the TID function, you sent your last collection run waypoint TOT to one or two minutes before all the blue emitters come back on.
I hit the waypoint, set the pod to 0/F, landed, system to BER and…nope, I’m picking up at least 1 blue signal way after I shut things off…I think…could it be that because my basic RAWR gear could detect it earlier (when the pod was off) that it shows up…I guess I have my next experiment.
I’m pretty sure this is the reason as I still get ELINT info even without the pod.
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I have been doing a lot of work with the ELINT function. Unfortunately, I think something has broken since the earlier days of this track.
Background: I wanted to work up a short series of Viggen missions. In mission 1 would be an ELINT mission, to get an overview of enemy air defenses. Specifically it would determine if a specific location had been upgraded from an SA-6 to an SA-11. (A flag was set to random with a 50% chance of either). For the next mission, you would choose a specific mission file based on what you discovered in the ELINT mission; SA-6 or SA-11.
Problem 1 - The SA-6 in the water: I can get if there is an SA-6 or SA-11 but not really where. The ELINT gives me a tight area that is kilometers from the actual site.
Problem 2 Missing HAWK: I have placed a HAWK system with both an AN/MPQ-50 and AN/MPQ-55 active. They never show up. I was thinking part of that may have been because the SA-6 and AN/MPQ-55 both have a 967 Hz PRF…so it thinks both are the same? But what about the AN/MPQ-50?
Problem 3 - No Off Button: It seems that the U22/A is initially powered down and can be turned on by switching from 0/F to A/F (warm up) and then A/ B/H/J/K. Theoretically, that should mean that setting it back 0/F would turn it off. The other indications in the cockpit (the MOTVERK light) makes it appear that the pod is off. However, it most assuredly is still collecting ELINT.
Problem 4 - no last signal: The last signal fields in the ELINT data all show 0:0:0
A couple of other things I’ve noticed - don’t know if they make a difference or not.
The U22/A pod takes 3 minutes to warm up after you have set it to A/F. The KB-H/KA SL warning light illuminates through this process and goes out when the pod is ready. Pretty cool.
The U22/A pod supposed only “sees” in the forward hemisphere. If the MOTVERK warning light is any indication, this seems to be about a ±45º off dead ahead. The MOTVERK light blinks when receiving ELINT from about that area.
More work today…I am thinking that this wasn’t meant to do detailed ELINT work …the kind I’m used to. My goal now is to just get ELINT bones over the correct Islands.
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You could actually load the mission file directly via a trigger for this.
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Actually, what you mean is that YOU could load the mission file directly via a trigger for this. I haven’t gotten that far yet. 
You are lightyears ahead of me.
Seriously, is it a script or didn’t I see a trigger for that?
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It’s one of the available actions for a trigger: load mission, then you can pick which mission file to load. So what you can do is set a flag for whichever site has become active (or use one flag and use multiple values), then upon your mission success conditions (ie aircraft has been through the ELINT zone and is now back at base with speed and altitude < x) load the appropriate mission.
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That will work! Thanks. No to get the rest of the ELINT bugs figured out.
Were they parallel or offset at different angles? Ie: A North-South run followed by an West-East run
Two basically N-S runs - I’ve tried several flight plans - both on the same side, on both sides, very direct heading and more oblique headings…everything seems to give the same basic result.
My initial plan was to have all the Blue radars go down at a set time and then come back up at a set time. The idea being that you would want to finish the run and turn off the pod before they came back on. But that doesn’t work. It is kind of fun racing the time (using TID with the last WP as the target with TOT one minute before the deadline), but like I said, it keeps recording.
Now I am going to drop all the Red radars at a specific time - object is to get through the run before they turn off. I’ve reset most of the radars/SAMs…we shall see how it goes.
Have you tried turning the RWR off along with the pod?
Where is that? I thought that was hard wired like the radios.
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It’s near the countermeasure program setting knobs, you can choose to have the RWR with audio + lights, lights only, or off. I tried setting it to off and got no RWR pings along with no ELINT information. I was about to test to see if it could pick up information for ELINT, then just turn the whole thing off and see if all the data is retained.
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OK, I have done that - if I recall correctly it doesn’t turn it off.
The last test seems to have worked somewhat:
The result:
The SA-6 may have been a site in Iran or it could have been the Hawk’s AN/MPQ-55…doesn’t matter…the whole idea was to see the SA-11 and Hawk!
ELINT:
Emitter: 1
Freq: A PRF: 697
First signal: 6:38:19 Last signal: 0:0:0
Sequence broadca: 1s Silent: 2s
NW: 25:58:06 054:58:45 SE: 25:52:32 055:11:51Emitter: 2
Freq: A PRF: 447
First signal: 6:41:16 Last signal: 0:0:0
Sequence broadca: 1s Silent: 2s
NW: 26:17:59 055:16:17 SE: 26:14:47 055:20:25Emitter: 3
Freq: A PRF: 967
First signal: 6:41:23 Last signal: 0:0:0
Sequence broadca: 1s Silent: 2s
NW: 26:17:45 055:06:27 SE: 26:14:43 055:06:34Emitter: 4
Freq: B PRF: 7893
First signal: 6:41:43 Last signal: 0:0:0
Sequence broadca: 1s Silent: 2s
NW: 26:16:25 055:08:36 SE: 26:13:25 055:12:12
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Actually, I just checked it and it does indeed work. I shut off my RWR during takeoff, where nearby I had a friendly Hawk radar, flew to the target area and turned all the equipment on, did some SAM dodging (wanted to get close to get all radars), then shut everything off and RTB’d. The emitters detected were only within the timeframe that I had my equipment on, and the indicated ELINT boxes were only within the target area and not the friendly Hawk system.
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