RF Spectrum Mod

[General Meatsauce]

Hello,

I'm building out a concept for a mod that approximates the RF spectrum and provides some utility.

Feature Ideas:

• Configurable wide-band transceiver per vessel (future part add-on)
• Nav / Vessel / Satellite CW Beacons
  • permit radio ID of vessels within radio range
• RDF (radio direction finding)
  • Locate objects which are beaconing (facilities, lost vessels)
• Radio Astronomy (Jovian emissions, pulsars, Hydrogen Line, Meteor Scatter)
  • RF Phenomena (Fast Radio Burst, Unknown Signals, WOW! class signals)
  • Do even more galactic radio things
• Solar Storms (degraded performance, damage to satellites necc. repair)
  • Carrington-level events every 5 minutes
• Known radio-emission sources mapped to their galactic RA/Dec coordinates.

Wish List:

• Implementations of Ionosphere on planetary bodies
  • Approximation of HF radio conditions
  • User defined HF Nav Beacons
• Deep Space style radio network
  • Build networks of long-range radio relays
  • Data / science exchange
• Global text/voice exchange
  • Communicate in a shared universe with other mod users
• Synchronized celestial events (occur for anyone using the mod at the same date & time)
  • Observe the same solar flare or quasar emission
• Radar Astronomy

CW Beacon Concept

I'm at a very early stage, so I'd love to see if there's any interest, feedback, and ideas.

 

[SSDeveloper]

Now this sounds neat! Not sure yet if I'd use it in a main save or anything, but I'd definitely like to try it out if/when it's thing(/when KSA runs on my computer...)!

 

[SSDeveloper]

Actually, I'm also gonna CC in fellow ham @Ol' AtomicTech (hope you don't mind the ping!), who I think might also find this interesting.

Also, am I right in guessing you're an amateur radio operator @General Meatsauce?

 

[General Meatsauce]

Actually, I'm also gonna CC in fellow ham @Ol' AtomicTech (hope you don't mind the ping!), who I think might also find this interesting.

Also, am I right in guessing you're an amateur radio operator @General Meatsauce?

What gave that away?

 

[General Meatsauce]

Now this sounds neat! Not sure yet if I'd use it in a main save or anything, but I'd definitely like to try it out if/when it's thing(/when KSA runs on my computer...)!

That was always the question, right? For example, what purpose does it serve beyond nerding out? I laid out a few use cases between the lines in the first post, but I think its too early to say definitively.

 

[SSDeveloper]

What gave that away?

Just a feeling, couldn't quite put my finger on it...

 

[Dejvid]

My Avionics Mod currently has basic 'radio' based navigation, but it doesn't actually simulate anything about the electromagnetic spectrum right now. If you had a somewhat faithful representation of the RF spectrum, maybe my instruments and nav aids could use that. I would especially love it if my mod could detect if the RF spectrum mod is installed or not and tap into that only if present.

 

[General Meatsauce]

My Avionics Mod currently has basic 'radio' based navigation, but it doesn't actually simulate anything about the electromagnetic spectrum right now. If you had a somewhat faithful representation of the RF spectrum, maybe my instruments and nav aids could use that. I would especially love it if my mod could detect if the RF spectrum mod is installed or not and tap into that only if present.

I saw that and found it very interesting.

Integration with other mods would be exciting.

I'm not attempting to do physics simulation of RF waves. That might be too intense. Basically the mod sets up an interface for vessels and fixed transmitters, and provides all vessels with a receiver, set vessel CW ID, band scope for finding signals, and RDF indicator to obtain a bearing on any signal.

For example, I'll pull the cities and lat/long from astronomicals and play that cities' ID if there is LOS to the fixed transmitter point.

All it does now is play a CW ID if a transmitter is range and on frequency.

That interface can allow us to do a whole bunch of things.

Consider some of the uses of radio in aviation:

• VOR - Navigation Beacon - practically implemented
• ADS-B - actively transmitting pos, alt, velocity - plot to map - might come in handy if KSA evolves with drone ships.
• ACARS - aircraft telemetry and systems status - watch your vessels performance from distance
• TCAS - collision avoidance - alert and automate high traffic environments
• SAR - Rescue Beacons - locate downed vessels
• VOLMET - automated weather info (should KSA ever include IMC)

I can foresee a network of satellites that can help you locate SAR beacons or relay ACARS.

If you think about it, all these are either beacons or XCVR with unique payloads & work done on the other end with that payload.

There's lots of little toys to build.

 

[General Meatsauce]

A little progress today with the RX panel



Spectrum graph and waterfall to help you see the band at a glance .

I have vessel transmitters working but assigning fixed transmitters to city markers is proving troublesome.

 

[General Meatsauce]

Are there methods getting/setting pos of fixed objects on Earth (or any body)? I'm still hunting but so far having trouble...

 

[Dejvid]

I don't know about setting the position, but if you want to get the position of a vehicle, you can do
(Celestial)vehicle.Orbit.Parent.GetCci2Ccf() * vehicle.GetPositionCci();

Or to get GPS coords you can do:

// Return GPS position as (latitude [radians], longitude [radians], altitude [meters])
public static double3 GetGPSPosition(Vehicle vehicle) {
    Astronomical parent = vehicle.Orbit.Parent;
    Celestial celestial = (Celestial)vehicle.Orbit.Parent;
    double3 surface_position = celestial.GetCci2Ccf() * vehicle.GetPositionCci();

    double x = surface_position[0];
    double y = surface_position[1];
    double z = surface_position[2];

    double r = Math.Sqrt(x * x + y * y + z * z);

    double latitude = Math.Asin(z / r);     // [-pi/2, +pi/2]
    double longitude = Math.Atan2(y, x);     // [-pi, +pi]
    double altitude = r - parent.MeanRadius;

    return new double3(latitude, longitude, altitude);
}

What do you want to set/get the position of?

I recommend checking out the KSA Modding Society Discord server, the folks there are very helpful and quick. You can try the #modding-help channel.

 

[General Meatsauce]

I don't know about setting the position, but if you want to get the position of a vehicle, you can do
(Celestial)vehicle.Orbit.Parent.GetCci2Ccf() * vehicle.GetPositionCci();

Or to get GPS coords you can do:

// Return GPS position as (latitude [radians], longitude [radians], altitude [meters])
public static double3 GetGPSPosition(Vehicle vehicle) {
    Astronomical parent = vehicle.Orbit.Parent;
    Celestial celestial = (Celestial)vehicle.Orbit.Parent;
    double3 surface_position = celestial.GetCci2Ccf() * vehicle.GetPositionCci();

    double x = surface_position[0];
    double y = surface_position[1];
    double z = surface_position[2];

    double r = Math.Sqrt(x * x + y * y + z * z);

    double latitude = Math.Asin(z / r);     // [-pi/2, +pi/2]
    double longitude = Math.Atan2(y, x);     // [-pi, +pi]
    double altitude = r - parent.MeanRadius;

    return new double3(latitude, longitude, altitude);
}

What do you want to set/get the position of?

I recommend checking out the KSA Modding Society Discord server, the folks there are very helpful and quick. You can try the #modding-help channel.

I've been grabbing the LatLong of city markers and emulate a fixed transmitter at that position. If the vessel has line of sight, a signal is captured. For example, at 300km, you can see the NYC Marker, therefore you can hear the NYC beacon.

I don't want to be limited to just city markers, however. I'd like to place objects on planets that "emit" RF. I suppose I'm not really understanding the coordinate system of bodies.

I'll poke around in dis. Thanks for the snip

 

[General Meatsauce]

Got fixed beacons working with a decent fall off curve

 

[General Meatsauce]

Now with 100% more radar

 

[General Meatsauce]

Here's where I am at

Ionocat RF Spectrum Mod – Implemented (with some fixes required)

1. Full RF Receiver Simulation
- Wide tuning range
- Multiple demod modes (AM, FM, NFM, USB, LSB, CW)
- Omni vs. phased antenna modes
- Distance-based signal strength with real S-meter behavior

2. Transmitter Ecosystem
- Vessel radios with auto callsigns
- Fixed transmitters loaded from JSON
- City-based placement using KSA location data
- Line-of-sight detection with planet obstruction

3. Audio Engine
- Continuous band noise model
- Lightning/spike noise events
- Morse ID generation (dit/dah timing engine)
- Dynamic volume and SNR behavior

4. Receiver Panel UI
- VFO tuning and fine tuning controls
- Mode switching
- S-meter display
- Waterfall visualization
- Spectrum display
- Display span controls
- Test beacon toggle
- Hooks for tools (Radar, RA/Dec)

5. Waterfall & Spectrum System
- Span-aware frequency windowing
- Gaussian signal shape rendering
- Colorized waterfall (blue → cyan → yellow → white)
- Full-width spectrum plot

6. RA/Dec Pointing System
- Real-time RA/Dec from vessel orientation
- Manual target RA/Dec entry
- Sky target storage for future autopoint integration

7. Radio Astronomy Module
- Source definitions (e.g., Vega)
- Beam-width intersection detection
- Frequency-window matching
- Entry/exit event logging and audio hooks

8. Radar System (Framework Stage)
- Radar UI with PPI mode and range rings
- Vessel-relative transform system (forward/right/up basis)
- Detection rendering pipeline
- Conversion of world positions into radar detections

9. Game Integration Hooks
- Automatic vessel tracking each frame
- Receiver pose updating
- Unified update loop for radio, audio, radar, astronomy

...I need to stop adding things.