NDB? *.gob files in xb_japan

[steve1956]

I am trying to use radio navigation on WW2 aircraft types.

I did install an ADF "gauge" from the 737-400<CF2\737-400!ADF>, but it just gives me a morse code signal when I enter the NDB of a local air base and I "activate" it by pressing the ID button. My heading(towards that air base or not) doesn't seem to change anything. Am I missing something obvious here?

There is a file in the "docs" folder of CFS2 which lists Japanese air bases in the Home Islands, the "gob" files(1 or 2) corresponding to that base and an "NDB" that corresponds to that particular base. Is this file relevant to what I am trying to do? What is an "NDB" and what is a "gob" file? Is this relevant to what I am trying to do?

Any pertinent information on this topic will be heartily appreciated...

[Tango_Romeo]

....Non-Directional Beacon. I believe that the NDB signal has a max range of 100 miles and that is it.

I can't tell you how to activate your ADF, since I have always used the very effective CFS2 GPS system, which acts pretty much like an OMNI with a needle that you keep centered. However, the GPS gauge does give you range to destination.

One of our ADF experts will surely be along shortly to help you with the ADF. :d

[Tango_Romeo]

Steve McClelland's Far East Scenery package, along with it's update package, both posted a couple of pages apart on SimV/Scenery, includes all of the necessary ADF/NDB and GPS files necessary for all of the airfields (and there are one hell of a lot) contained in the scenery.:ernae:

[jimskifs]

NDB is a non directional beacon still in use today. It might have been really new technology in ww2. Gps is very modern and has nothing to do with ww2 I'm afraid.

If you are getting the morse code of the beacon then you are within range and receiving its signal. Your receiver is working. But it also needs a separate gauge which looks like a compass with a needle which will point towards the beacon. Then you have to turn the aircraft yourself to fly to the beacon. Have you installed the separate gauge? There are several available and I think they will all function given a working receiver which you have.

Jimski

[steve1956]

Tango-Romeo and jimskifs, thank-you for your fraternal help and advice.

I just tried that suggestion of yours, jimskifs, and it seems to be working okay. I installed a "gauge" called ADF from the 737-400 set and an ADF indicator(called homingind.gau) from the He-111 and this combination works just as you said it would.

As I understand it, while there were some exceptions, during the Pacific War, Japanese radio and radar technology was somewhat similar to that of ourselves and the "Brits", but was about two or three years behind. During the 1930s, it had become pretty much standard on most twin- or multi-engined bombers to use a fairly primitive sort of radio direction finder in bad weather and/or at night. An RDF loop was hooked to a radio receiver and it had some sort of "compass rose". The radioman and/or navigator tuned in a station and "hunted" for the loudest signal which he could get by rotating the RDF loop. The IJN air crew had simply retuned to a Hawaiian broadcast station and "homed" on that signal to assist in finding their way to Pearl Harbor on the morning of the attack there.

It is certainly clear from wartime photos that many twin- or multi-engined warplanes(both Allied and Axis types) had an ADF loop, sometimes under the cockpit canopy, sometimes in the open and occasionally inside a teardrop-shaped fairing. This system worked after a fashion.

In terms of "bleeding edge" Allied radio technology, the British led the way with their more advanced "Gee" navigational system and it was fairly respectable, even by modern standards. More advanced developments of "Gee" were adopted by the USAAF and the Navy as H2S("Home-Sweet-Home"), H2X and, ultimately, LORAN and SHORAN.

The Germans were sometimes able to salvage serviceable "Gee" sets from the wreckage of RAF bombers which their night-fighters had shot down and used a few of them in their own bombers during "Operation Steinbock", the last bomber offensive against England in the first few weeks of 1944.

Herman Goering kidded his technical experts by saying that when the war was over and Germany had won, he was planning to buy a British radio for his home. The Brits were pioneers in a related technology that could transmit picture over the air as well as sound. I think that it was/is called "television".

However, not all of this new technology was available to the pilots of single-engined fighter planes. It is pretty clear from their descriptions that such pilots as Gregory Boyington and Saburo Sakai were flying VFR and made good use of any landmarks which they could see. That, some dead-reckoning and a magnetic compass were what they had to work with.

Combat flying in World War 2 was a very high-risk line of work and the dangers of flying at night and/or in bad weather were just starting to be mitigated by improved radio equipment.

[jimskifs]

Steve1956,

Very glad you have it working. Your research into the background pretty much agrees with what I have seen although I haven't seen dates when the systems were installed. "Radio range" was also used but I've never seen that simulated.

Like you I've looked over photographs of old planes and seen that almost all heavy bombers had adf antennas (or the older loop antennas), about half of the mediums, and so far I haven't seen adf's on any single seaters. How much the systems were used in war theaters is very unclear to me. There is a very interesting website at

http://www.kathyamen.net/journal/index.htm

which contains the journals (even some photos of his log books) of b26 navigator William Lewis who flew in combat in Europe. I don't think he ever mentions using adf even though they were clearly sometimes lost in a very dangerous way trying to return to base in the soup. But all B26 photos show adf antennas.

By the way, it is possible to simulate Oboe and I think one of the Mosquito downloads already has a panel for that. Don't see how to simulate Gee but the pilot has little to do with that - it looks to be something of a ground based gps system with accuracy of five miles or so over German targets.

JImski