Internet Update

Hi guys. Sorry I've been out of touch lately, but I am moving toward the day when I can fly on-line again. My roof shingles have really been the greatest impediment to getting the internet upgraded, since I had planned to re-shingle/upgrade internet last fall, but due to covid demands, the roofer of choice was not available. So since Easter, I've succeeded in getting that bit of home maintenance done and am currently working with my internet provider to upgrade my service.

So all these years I've been flying on an internet Lite plan and didn't know it. Duh! However, promised performance of "up to" 3 Mbps download speeds were never realized, 400-250 Kbps being the norm. So I've just upgraded as of this week to a 6 Mbps download plan and basically put my service provider on notice. I'm waiting for a new 5G antenna to replace the older dish model and am tracking download/upload speeds four or five times per day for the next four weeks. If they fail to live up to promised performance, then I'm pulling the plug on the local carrier.

Option two, and I'll know by 1 September if that's my choice, is to sign up with a national carrier who moved a tower into our area late last year and have just completed a series of upgrades now promising plans of between 10 Mbps to 50 Mbps download speeds. I have several neighbours in the area who have switched and they now have access to full uninterupted streaming services. I may punch for the middle and go with a 30 Mbps plan, since I'm not a big movie watcher. Sport yeh!! Reality shows nah!!

So, I'm probably light years behind you guys in Hornet skills, since I mostly putter around with simple BVR engagements and ACM with guns with a little laser guided bombing to change it up a little.

So I'll get back to you when I think the time is right for an online test of the system to get your Discord coordinates etc. Been a long break, but winters coming and Saturday nights are awful dull without something to do.

Cheers.

Sorry to hear about your Mother-in-law Dev. Hope everyone else is healthy and happy!!

Looking forward to seeing you back.

Thanks Alpine,

Looking forward to getting together with you guys as well. Tonight looks like as good a night as any to test recent changes to my internet service. New antenna went up yesterday and my new plan seems to be a lot more stable than the previous version. Still not pulling in great speeds. I paid for 6Mbps but only get 3 at best with the odd surge, but if the ping is not too great and the connection is stable, then hopefully I can fly without any warping or timed out connections.

I looked for the 450 server Persian Gulf scenario last night but didn't find it. And I've been out of the game so long I don't recall how to use the radio comms setup or how to text when in DCS. So, bear with me as I re-learn all these things.

If you see a Hornet looking lost, that's me!!

Couldn't find the server. Perhaps another time.

Hi Speed, great to see you are getting back into DCS flying. The 450 servers are down unfortunately and Cavey has been unable to fix the fault. Squiz, Dice and me have been flying WWII aircraft of late on the DCS OpenBeta multiplayer "Storm of War" server. We generally get online at between 0900 - 1000 Sunday mornings (Melbourne time) (1900 - 2000 Saturday evening Ottawa time).

To fly in SoW you need to have SRS installed as the server automatically connects when going into the SoW server. The SoW server is "full real" with no external views and all player flyable aircraft being cold started. The server is generally well populated and runs a series of missions that are about six hours in length before rolling over to the next mission. The weather and mission settings are based on events from D-Day (6 June 1944) through to mid July 1944. Bomber flights in SoW are AI with occasionally a couple of AI escorts. However most contacts sighted can be expected to be human players.

We now use Discord to communicate between ourselves when in the air and the appropriate SRS channel (usually Button A in the Spitfire) to communicate with other players on our side. I have found it best to have Discord set to "Voice Activation" and SRS set to PTT on one of my HOTAS buttons. In that way we can easily communicate with each other without broadcasting to all the other players on our side. Here is a link to the latest version of SRS http://dcssimpleradio.com/

Here is an invite to our Discord channel https://discord.gg/EPsyRMQK

Here is a link on how to set up Discord and join a server (using the above invite)

Wolverine has been offline due to personal matters but he recently advised that he expects to get back into DCS very soon.

Steg and Foobs have been coming onto the server with me lately in the evenings so our numbers will increase as we get better in the WWII planes. Our ride of choice is currently the Spitfire but occasionally Dice and I take our Bf-109s out for a run.

From what you wrote I assume that the national carrier is offering a fixed wireless service. My home one is fixed wireless at 25 Mbps and I generally average about 6 Mbps when using it in the evenings (highest demand time) and better than that during the morning and afternoon as most people in my area are either at work or school during those times.

I would certainly recommend going with the national carrier if you can get between 10 and 50 Mbps.

On another front I saw recently in the Discord channels that Mugga Virtual Pilots (MVP) have taken over the running of the Korea 1952 server from SeaQuark. We may soon be able to revisit our Sabre days.

Cheers Dev

Thanks Dev for the update. My last high hope for getting online last year fizzled when the improved package obtained from my service provider failed to live up to expectations. My ping rates were off the charts for most NA servers so I had to cool my jets over the past twelve months.

I like that you guys are flying on one of the Beta servers as there are some pretty good packages available out there.

The good news for now is that high-speed fiber will be installed throughout my neighbourhood in the coming weeks? months? and instead of putzing along with 3 or 4 Mbps I'll be able to select plans up to 6 and 8 Gigs. With the reliability of hard-wired fiber versus the wireless hit-and-miss smoke signals I'm used to, I should be able to finally get back to on-line flying. Greatly missed that and all of you.

I'll get myself sorted out on Discord and link up ASAP.

Hoping you and yours are happy and well and once I know more I'll post an update.

PS

What are you flying these days? WWII or jets? My Hornet A2A gunnery skills are still good, missile/radar skills improved from last year (I finally learned to notch and to employ more advanced TWS settings) but my A2G setup skills are pretty rusty. As for WWII I can't even remember how to start one up.

Cheers

Hey Speed, good to hear from you. Sorry I don't check the forums as often as I should.

We still get together most Saturdays on Discord and we split between the Mossie, Spit and Apache.
I hope things work out with your internet and get back online soon.

StiC

The fiber optic infrastructure is complete and I'm now about to call Bell and have them hook up my service. Just for shits and giggles I tried to log onto Growling Sidewinder's Open Conflict server with a ping of 42 and it was a long clunky process. Never actually succeeded but it just validated that my current connection, while better, is still too slow for online flight.

So, if anyone happens by this post in the next few weeks (Feb/Mar) could you post the Discord invitation again. The one above expired.

Once I establish voice comms I'll link up with you guys on a Saturday and get my setup sorted out.

Thanks

Invite sent through private message. Get here quick! We need people fight in Wolverine's new Falkland Islands Campaign.