VOR Green Direction Needle Issue

[chiswick72 145]

Dear PMDG,I have noticed this for the second time in a few days so I took a screenshot, it happend once here at Jacksonville, and once in the UK.I am flying towards the VOR called NIP, and I noticed two things. Firstly the VOR green needles are pointing backwards (see pic) and the VOR is not displayed on the map either.Is this a bug or a VOR which isnt in the database, or am I overlooking something else.Many thanks in advance.Armen L Cholakianwww.veryquiet.comhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/86568.jpg

[Guest hardhit]

Hi Armen,First why is the staion not showing on your map is because you are 43.5 miles from this VOR and your dispaly is set to show only what is within 40 miles of your plane.As for the arrows pointing downward, are you sure your not tracking the outbound leg to this VOR so flying away from the station ?Regards,Peter

[Guest hardhit]

OK Armen,I did some further checking an you are indeed flying towards NIP I checked in FSNAV. So it beat's me why the needle is showing that you are flying away from the VOR.Regards,Peter

[ps1flyer 9]

I'd say the question is rather why there are ANY needles visible at all. If you check e.g. www.airnav.com for more information for NIP, you'll notice that NIP is not a VOR but rather a TACAN station which cannot be received by a VOR receiver. You can receive the DME information which happens to be correct. So the needles should either be invisible - or they are pointing to another station which happens to transmit on 108.20 somewhere south of the airplane.Markus

[chiswick72 145]

Guys,Thanks for the info....Peter, good observation on the display scale, but even zoomed out to 80 or 160 will not show you the location of NIP on the screen.Markus, I didnt know about TACANs too much but that would explain why we cannot see it on the screen. I was using FSNAV to get that position, I always put in a couple of references in the VOR and FIX pages just to show my personal flight progress, I have no idea if this is an operational procedure!And... I am definately flying TOWARDS NIP when this happens. As mentioned earlier I experienced the same problem flying Heathrow to Dublin, another VOR (TACAN) not showing up and needles were in the wrong direction.This may be a bug, or one shouldnt mistake TACANs for VORs? They look the same to me in FSNAV !Many thanks in advance.Armen L Cholakianwww.veryquiet.com

[Guest Zapper]

Markus,Well done!I am sure that is the problem here ...It is getting DME info from NIP and Azimuth info (lateral guidance) from another VOR station somewhere behind.May I suggest a check of all navaids within say 150 miles.. easy way is to use Centre Map and range out with STA selected on EFIS Control Panel. Look at teh idents provided and then a reference source for teh freq.Having said that.. 108.20 is not a normal VOR Freq rather it is an ILS frequency... in my experience that is... but that doesn't mean VORs aren't on that freq in USA or wherever this shot was taken.LMK how tyou get on,Rgds,

[Guest Zapper]

One other small thing..IRL: When the NAV box is only getting the DME component of a signal then the IDENT letters in the lower corners of ND will be in small font. This may be a slight omission from the sim.ATB,

[Guest moose_VUSN]

if anyone is interested, i will be releasing some updated TACANs scenery for FS2004 (& FS2002) that adds a large number of TACANs in the US (changing them from DME's to VOR-DMEs). i'll do that at a similar time to my 737NG military version/BBJ config changes.all military virtual organisations use this type of scenery, as its almost essential (most military bases have TACAN approaches & not ILS, so we use them a lot!).i have also succeeded in adding the TACANs to the NAVDATA database & they show up fine on the MAP display. i have sent the data to richard over at navdata.at (dunno yet if it will be in the next cycle).

[chiswick72 145]

Okay!I think I understand... correct me if I am wrong.In FSNAV, as VORs go, a square denotes a DME and a hexagon for the direction finder?So in a real situation, for a DME, you would expect no green direction needle and a lower case DME name?And, the backwards needle is just a little bug where the display is trying to get its data from two different VORS, one being a DME only?Many thanks in advance.Armen L Cholakianwww.veryquiet.com

[Guest Zapper]

Hey Armen,For FSNAV I have no idea as I do all my nav etc the same as I do IRL and use the FMC, Databse and ND and my charts.The rest of it you have spot on.. DME only has small name, DME dist and no needles.This example means it is pointing at one VOT but getting DME info from another one.ATB,

[chiswick72 145]

Cheers for that Brad.Armen L Cholakianwww.veryquiet.com

[falconno 0]

Armen and all..I've tested this on severeal "DME" transmitters and it seems that they all show lateral guidance to 180 degrees as a "default". Look at the pics below.The first showing exactly what happened to Armen. The second the actual position and actual heading to the transmitter.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/86763.jpgThe actual heading to the transmitter is 283:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/86764.jpgAll the DME's I tried came up with the same result, 180 degrees. I also tried to create some bgl's with DME transitters and this returned the same info, 180 degrees. As Brad says, IRL there are no needles at DME's. So as Markus replied; " I'd say the question is rather why there are ANY needles visible at all." Maybe it's possible to get this sorted out in a future update??Another part of the story is that these stations I tested actually are TACAN's and not only DME's....

[Guest flyinggriffin]

I suspect this is more a matter of how FS9 handles TACANS. If I remember and I could be wrong, all VORs in the game are actually VOR/DMEs. If it were a VORTAC then you could get the azmuth. I wonder if a real life tacan would then act similar to the VOT? Bob K.

[Qavion 19]

"Having said that.. 108.20 is not a normal VOR Freq rather it is an ILS frequency... in my experience that is..."They may be in New Zealand, Brad... but I'm not sure about the rest of the world ;-) I've never heard of an "even decimal" frequency being an ILS frequency.108.10, 108.30, 108.50, 108.70, 108.90... etc are ILS frequencies. In fact, you couldn't even dial in "108.20" on a (real) 767 ILS control panel.Cheers.Ian.

[Guest venquessa]

If it was the VOR north of Dublin VOR itself, it's not a VOR at all, it'a a DME and NBD complex. Gormanston I think it's called.HTH.PS. I found your thread strange, as I had a similar problem in the default 747 last night at LAX, I was using the ADF needle to the localiser to make an arc from IAF to capture ILS and ended up coming in a mile off to the left of the ILS beam! Still haven't figured it out yet, moving arouind the ground on slew gave very weird and in consitant results with the needle. Not really relevant though. I persume ILS LOCs are not that good with the VOR ADF needle.