Oleg, you'll be my hero forever if you can do this:

[erco]

Way back, when I was in flight school, we had to fly a set number of hours in C-172RG's. It took no time at all to become proficient in the required maneuvers, so I became fond of climbing above the mayhem that was our practice area, tuning in an oldies station that played big band music on the ADF, and swinging that fat old Cessna around the sky in time to Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller while the setting sun turned the Oklahoma summer haze to gold. Good times man, good times.

So I was thinking it would be maximum cool if we could tune the DF (in aircraft so equipped) to commercial broadcast and get period music, news, speeches, etc. It would be sooo cool if an announcer would break in to announce air raids as they happened. It would be extra very cool if what was on the radio was what was actually playing on that date and time. It would rock to tune in and catch Churchill addressing the nation, or hear ol' grumpypants himself working himself into a lather. German stations playing Lil' Marlene... Burma Shave commercials...
Immersion, anyone?

[RAF74_Winger]

That would be kind of fun - I've listened to long wave stations on the ADF myself. Perhaps there might just be an option to add some samples/mp3s into the ADF identifier directory.

W.

[MikkOwl]

Silent Hunter 4 had radio stations like you describe, with broadcasts on the correct day (but not exactly the correct hours - due to the difficulty of hanging around checking the radio all the time). It was like you two say, big boost to immersion and enjoyment. I downloaded additional tons of broadcasts but the system was not designed to play them back in a practical way. Hour long programs and everything often, and could not skip any of them so it it did not quite work out so well. I put them on winamp in the background so I could control them better.

Oleg described recently that their objects, like lighthouses and other stuff, can be programmed to transmit stuff on the simulated radio as well as flashing morse code with lights, for us to listen in on, and even navigate from. So technically this can be done, and, if not from release, modders will collect broadcasts and make them play when they should.

Not entirely sure those old aircraft radios could listen to public radio however..

[erco]

The DF equipment should be able to receive commercial AM broadcast, no trouble at all. It's good to hear that it's doable in SOW, and been done already!
It should be easy, then, for Oleg to achieve hero forever status!

[Feuerfalke]

You should check out DCS: Black Shark.

You can even add you own radio-files and stations. ;)

[nearmiss]

The DF equipment should be able to receive commercial AM broadcast, no trouble at all. It's good to hear that it's doable in SOW, and been done already!
It should be easy, then, for Oleg to achieve hero forever status!

Immersion...

Everything back then was short wave and AM at best. Then all the static and background noise distorted everything. The only decent place to hear anything was on clear nights/days on land.

In the aircraft you definitely couldn't hear the sounds of Lille Marlene >>>

Immersion is engine and wind noise and the occasional sounds of bullets hitting your six.

Then of course, even funnier... literally we are a generation of experiencers.

We want to experience everything all the time in mass quantity, cell phones, ipods, laptops, ear phones, etc. The immersion is how we immerse ourselves up to our eyeballs constantly. Difficult to carry on a conversation with another human most of the time.

So, yeah.. we are an immersed generation. We have a buttkicker for our chair, earphones for our ears, TrackIR our visuals, Forcefeedback for our stick, a lighted keyboard, a programmable controller, a camcorder to share our reactions, and so on. Afterall, if it can be done we can immerse ourselves in it.

Sorry, I really don't care about the above. I just think sometimes it is too funny how far we will go to entertain ourselves.

[KOM.Nausicaa]

Radiostations are nice. It added indeed lots of immersion to SH4. But the files to download in order to get some stations that cover say 2-3 years are HUGE. I downloaded them...gigabytes over gigabytes. Not a a thing everyone wants to do I think.

[erco]

I suppose that you don't have to turn it on, Nearmiss. Different strokes. However, you most certainly can hear voice, music, and morse, over DF equipment in an airplane in flight. It's not Dolby noise reduced surround sound, certainly, but it's good enough. Modern (?) ADF recievers do a nice job of it, and the DF of the day would have been at least as good.

[nearmiss]

I suppose that you don't have to turn it on, Nearmiss. Different strokes. However, you most certainly can hear voice, music, and morse, over DF equipment in an airplane in flight. It's not Dolby noise reduced surround sound, certainly, but it's good enough. Modern (?) ADF recievers do a nice job of it, and the DF of the day would have been at least as good.

I really do care less about it, but I don't mind if you have it.

During WW2 there was no FM radio, if there was it was miniscule.

Radio transmissions were on shortwave bands, with some AM.

There is no way you would have heard entertainment radio in the air during WW2. If you did it would have been very rare.

Even today you cannot hear AM when you go under overpass. The largest AM stations prior to FM transmitted 50,000 watts, WLS in Chicago.

So when people mention immersive my thinking pertains to things that were actually available and were part of the period of time discussed.

Again, I have no problem with any part of your request. I'm just saying if you are thinking historically immersive... I'm not in agreement with that.

Here is a link to a bunch of old Wartime music, interviews and such http://www.stelzriede.com/ms/html/sub/mshws.htm#ww2

It might be fun to have a thread with old WW2 music and broadcasts. Members could stop by share and enjoy some of the broadcasts.

Kinda help us all think on the reality of the times and events.

You start it... I'll contribute

[robtek]

@nearmiss
"There is no way you would have heard entertainment radio in the air during WW2."

Thats is not so, especially in flight it is easy to receive am radio-stations over a few 100 km.
This was used for navigation in ww2! I.e. "Soldatensender Belgrad" BBC London and quite a few Radio Stations where online during the war and where received with adf equipment in Bombers and other planes equipped with adf receivers.

[Viikate]

Please get your facts right Nearmiss.

Commercial AM radio uses mediumwaves. NDBs use longwaves which travel efficiently as a surface waves. By your logic these surface waves cannot be heard from air?!? So how is it possible for planes to navigate by NDBs?

Navigating by commercial AM radio was the primary way back in the old days. IJN planes homed to Pear Harbor by listening Radio Honolulu.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio
One of the first developments in the early 20th century (1900-1959) was that aircraft used commercial AM radio stations for navigation. This continued until the early 1960s when VOR systems finally became widespread (though AM stations are still marked on U.S. aviation charts).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-directional_beacon
NDB navigation consists of two parts - the Automatic Direction Finder (or ADF) equipment on the aircraft that detects an NDB's signal, and the NDB transmitter itself. The ADF can also locate transmitters in the standard AM mediumwave broadcast band (530 kHz to 1700 kHz at 10 kHz increments in the Americas, 531 kHz to 1602 kHz at 9 kHz increments in the rest of the world).

We did add commercial radio station type of "beacon" to 4.10. That's why I was asking the historically correct radio station names in one other thread. It works so that player can copy some sound clips to folders like "samples\Music\Radio\Radio_Honolulu" and when tunes the radio to Radio Honolulu, he can hear these tracks. And also the navigation instruments work as they do with normal NDBs. However there isn't (yet) any way to sync playback of certain track to specific mission and time.

[nearmiss]

Are you saying pilots were flying and listening to music and other radio broadcasts (non-military communication)?

I realize the 1940s were big years for radio broadcasting, but I've never read any accounts of pilots listening to entertainment radio while on missions.

AM = is the method of shortwave broadcasting.

Everyone back then had shortwave receivers, but they did require very careful tuning, which would have been difficult to do while flying.

Maybe in a bomber where you had a radioman it was possible. I don't recall any accounts of pilots tuning in to entertainment radio on missions.

It would have been possible in some instances to receive entertainment radio while flying, radio waves were filling the air during WW2.

[Viikate]

Normal commercial AM radio station can be used for navigation just like non-directional beacons. But of course the pilots didn't listen Glenn Miller all the time as if they would have iPods.

For example mid-late war German single engine planes had mostly FUG 16Z radios. Z meaning zielflug (homing). There a ZF-FT switch to toggle between two modes. Zielflug or Funktelegraphie. So you either can tune to NDB/radio station frequency and us it for homing OR you can talk to your wingman or ground control. So obviously Hans is not listening Lili Marleen all the time.

Bombers normally have several radios (mediumwave, shortwave, etc.) Check Ju-88 or Bf-110 for example. They could have kept one channel open for communication between planes and tune another receiver to AM radio station and route the music through intercoms so that all members of crew can hear it. To relieve battle stress and uplift moods.

[nearmiss]

@nearmiss
"There is no way you would have heard entertainment radio in the air during WW2."

Thats is not so, especially in flight it is easy to receive am radio-stations over a few 100 km.
This was used for navigation in ww2! I.e. "Soldatensender Belgrad" BBC London and quite a few Radio Stations where online during the war and where received with adf equipment in Bombers and other planes equipped with adf receivers.

You got me there..

Shortwave AM transmissions were the norm during WW2, yes I do believe the signals were out there and could be received.

Yes, pilots could have received those signals in the air with someone to carefully tune for signals with the right equipment.

Did pilots have the right equipment and the time to tune those signals while on missions is probably what I should have said? LOL

[Viikate]

Did pilots have the right equipment and the time to tune those signals while on missions is probably what I should have said? LOL

Of course they did have the equipment. Normal aircraft radios like this FUG 10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE45V4lwydA

Dedicated radio operator would have time to fool around with radios.

[philip.ed]

I've definately read before that, occasionally, some pilots (after a sortie) would stick on the favourite roadio-station of the day to play in flight...

however, I can't remember where I read it :confused:

[erco]

Tuning these radios is easier than you think. Easily within the capabilities of a single pilot.

[TheGrunch]

I remember reading Brian Kingcome's book (I think it was his) where he said he was very disappointed when the early-type radios in Spitfires were changed for the newer ones that couldn't be tuned to commercial radio stations.

[Mysticpuma]

There is no way you would have heard entertainment radio in the air during WW2. If you did it would have been very rare.



I don't often pop in to disagree, but I have talked with various pilots of the 325th who flew P-51 Mustangs, and they commonly relate that they would tune in their radio to listen to Axis Sally as they flew in the MTO. So it is quite possible.

As for the addition, not fussed either-way, but if it's in I can decide not to listen, if it isn't, I don'e have an option?

Cheers, MP.

[yarbles]

Here's what I do:

Hit this website: http://www.whro.org/home/html/liveradio/1920s_wma.html

Minimize and fly my mission. It's total streaming of old tymey type music and commercials of the period. totally free and streaming is high quality. you name it from the 30s and 40s, they play it. it totally enhances the experience. i used to load up a bunch of 40s mp3s when i played Silient Hunter and let the crew play their victrolia.

yarables