Radio communications
The radio allows players to communicate each other within a simulation using a text chat. To be able to communicate, a group of players must be inside the same simulation at the same time, with all their radios tuned to the same frequency/channel.
Radio model
Currently only one radio model based on the Motorola Spectra Clean Cab Railroad Radio is available. This is a two-way radio that can operate in full-duplex through separate TX (transmitter) and RX (receiver) channels.
This radio operates on the 97 AAR channels. Every channel is identified by a two-digit number that automatically translates to the corresponding AAR frequency. For example, channel 34 translates to 160.620MHz, thus, the radio user must not deal with frequencies.
Since TX and RX channels can be different, to tune the radio you must always enter four digits (with leading zeros). If you are provided with only one channel, for example 34, this means this channel is used for both TX and RX, must be entered as 3434, and then the radio operates in half-duplex.
Radio frontal.
The radio operates always in one of this modes:
- Normal mode: By default the radio operates in this mode. You can press the radio PTT key to start writing a message, then a text input will appear centered at the top of your computer screen. Write a message and press ENTER to send it. To cancel press ENTER with an empty message. In normal mode you can also send DTMF tones by pressing the radio numeric keypad.
- Channel select mode: You enter this mode by pressing the radio CHAN key. Then using the radio keypad you must enter four digits (including leading zeros), the first two digits are the TX channel, the last two digits are the RX channel. You have 10 seconds to enter a valid channel pair. If not entered within this time, the radio changes to normal mode with the previously selected channels.
- Dispatch DTMF select mode: Not available.
- Dispatch tone select mode: Not available.
- Home select mode: Not available.