SPAD.neXt - edit Saitek radio display?

[TextRich 88]

Hello everyone.  I have not gotten an e-mail verification from SPAD.neXt's forums or answer to a support ticket sent two days ago, so I'm guessing the staff are busy or on holiday.  I am hoping the experts that populate these forums can help me out instead.

I have SPAD.neXt registered and I use it with the Saitek/Logitech flight radio panel and FSX:SE.  I understand SPAD.neXt enough to be able to change the barometric display from Hg to inches.  🙂  However, I cannot figure out how to change the radio frequency display so that if, for example, I have 119.97 and I turn the small knob up, I will get 119.00 and NOT have the left number increase to 120.00.  So basically I do not want the number to the left of the decimal place to be affected by the number to the right of the decimal place... like real radios.  🙂

I don't know the technical term for that, so I have been having a hard time finding answers that would help me edit my SPAD.neXt settings.  Thank you for any help.

[charliearon 3,017]

I would hope that it is millibars (European) to HG (inches of mercury) (Standard U.S.).  Is there an inner and outer knobs for changing the radio freqs?

[TextRich 88]

1 hour ago, charliearon said:

I would hope that it is millibars (European) to HG (inches of mercury) (Standard U.S.).  Is there an inner and outer knobs for changing the radio freqs?

Oh sorry I don't pay attention to those units as I usually fly in the States.  Yes, the default was millibars and I changed it to Hg.  I only mentioned it so people would know I know the basics of how to set up the panels with the SPAD.neXt software and maybe I just missed an easy option for the radio display.

Yes, there are inner and outer knobs for that radio panel - two of them.

I use SPAD.neXt because using the default panel software doesn't work well with FSX:SE and I wanted to be able to customize the panels a bit more than the default settings.  I just want the radio to go from something like 119.97 to 119.00 and not 119.97 to 120.00 when I change the .97 to .00 with the smaller knob.  I don't know the term for it and I don't know how to set it up that way.

I am able to do it with the same panel in Flight Sim World (without using SPAD.neXt - FSW only required a driver of sorts from Logitech).  So I know it is a software thing, not a hardware thing, for SPAD.neXt and FSX:SE to be able to display the radio so the numbers to the left of the decimal will be independent of the numbers to the right of the decimal.

[MarkDH 234]

1 hour ago, BF Bullpup said:

So I know it is a software thing, not a hardware thing, for SPAD.neXt and FSX:SE to be able to display the radio so the numbers to the left of the decimal will be independent of the numbers to the right of the decimal.

From my tinkering with SPAD.neXt I would guess you have to do it in the places where you set up the event handling for the knob up/down events. I am working completely blind here as I don't have SPAD.neXt registered for FSX, only X-Plane, but the principles are the same. If you find (for example) the place where there is an action linked to the outer knob 'up' event, somewhere in there it will retrieve a value from an FSX variable, increment it and write it back to another (or the same) variable. There are options for incrementing and decrementing a value using modular arithmetic, limiting the values, and so on. It may be that you can change the arithmetic to work how you want it to. Perhaps the profile you are using is retrieving the frequency as a whole value and operating on that. It may be that you can retrieve the whole and fractional values from different variables and increment/decrement them independently. Or you might find it is set up to just increment and decrement the frequencies by calling standard FSX events, inc which case you will have to (a) find alternative events that do what you want , or (b) recode it by manipulating data values as I described above.

That all makes sens in my head but it may seem impossibly vague to you. The only other thing I can suggest is to look at my SPAD.neXt video (which is for X-Plane, but should still help) to see some examples of the kind of thing I'm talking about. Apologies if you already know all this :)

[TextRich 88]

Thanks MarkDH.  Don't worry about showing me your video for the XPlane version - the one I use for FSX looks pretty much the same.  Thank you for using the terms "whole" and "fractional" - those were what I was looking for!

When I go to the radio panel in SPAD.neXt, I can see the following when I click on the standby radio display (for example, for COM1):

Tuner (inner):Clockwise --> Increment COM STANDBY FREQUENCY:1 by 0.025

I think I get it now... the term boldfaced above is for the entire frequency (whole and fractional).  No wonder the whole number kept going up when the fractional number goes up past 99.  I only need something to replace COM STANDBY FREQUENCY with something that is for fractional ONLY, then I will be all set. 🙂

***A few minutes of tinkering later***

Yep it works!!!  How I did it for others' reference:

1) Tune the left knob to the type of radio you want to edit (COM1, COM2, NAV1, NAV2)

2) In SPAD.next, click on the top or bottom half of the picture of the radio panel

3) Double click one of either: Tuner (inner): Clockwise and Tuner (inner): Counterclockwise

4) In the bottom box (Action(s) to be executed) click on that single action (same as in boldface above).  Then click Delete Action on the right

5) Click on Add Action and select Send Simulation-Event from the resulting pull-down menu

6) In the upper left, make sure only SIMCONNECT is checked.  In the top center, add FRACT to the search box (to make it easier to find).  In the list below, double click to select COM_RADIO_FRACT_xxx (xxx = INC or DEC depending on which action you are replacing).

7) In the next window, Configure Simulation Event, edit the Parameter Value to 0.025.  Click on OK.  Test the radio in the simulator - if you crank it up past .99, the whole (left) number will not change!

8.) Remember to save your profile when you are done.  You will need to do a lot of monkey work by repeating steps 1-7 to edit both rows of radios and all possible knob settings so no matter if you use the top or bottom row of the radio, it will always work as intended.  I assume if you have a 2nd radio panel, you can simply copy the profile from the 1st manually edited panel to the 2nd radio panel.

Thank you again for helping to point me in the right direction, MarkDH.  Now I need to get to editing so I can get to flying!

[TextRich 88]

I forgot to add step 9 - when editing the NAV1 and NAV2 radios, select NAV_RADIO instead of COM_RADIO.  Also, COM_RADIO is for COM1 and COM2_RADIO is for COM2, and so on for NAV.  I think others can figure these out themselves but just wanted to make sure.

[MarkDH 234]

Awesome! 😉

[TextRich 88]

This is just a heads up for those who might otherwise struggle needlessly.  Today I purchased two VirtualCol aircrafts for FSX: the Embraer 170/175 X and 190/195 X.  Both planes seem to have an error in how SimConnect is implemented.  When I use the bigger dials, the standby frequency correctly changes for the whole numbers like with all my other aircraft (default and add-on).  However when I use the smaller dials to change the fractional numbers, the active, not standby, frequencies get updated.  I am hoping it is because the _FRACT command was incorrectly programmed for the active frequencies rather than the standby frequencies.  I have sent a support request and I hope it will be a simple fix.  In addition, both planes have been updated to the latest versions.  Other than the radio issue, I enjoyed both planes!  So far the fix i have posted above has worked for all the other 10-15 aircrafts I have flown with SPAD.next since then.