CommNet Signal Strength Calculator & Antenna Selector

[Poodmund]

30 minutes ago, Blaarkies said:

@Poodmund Thanks for this awesome tool! It has inspired me to make an interactive tool

 

Awesome, that's amazing. If you need any guidance with calculations feel free to ask.

[Blaarkies]

2 hours ago, Poodmund said:

Awesome, that's amazing. If you need any guidance with calculations feel free to ask.

Thanks, I definitely will 

The important part I think it still needs, is showing users if a relay hop to Kerbin is possible:

• If the relay satellite has a very strong direct antenna, it will show a green line, even though its weak relay antenna might not reach Kerbin to actually do the relay
• I think it needs 2 lines. A solid line for relay strength, and a dashed line for the direct connection strength (which uses direct+relay antennae)

[Poodmund]

Its also worth noting that if you plan to draw multiple hops back to the KSC, KSP decides the route back by sequential testing and chooses you the first successful link back. It first tests a link directly back to the KSC and if that isn't available, checks hops to craft that exist in chronological order (I think).

[Noah Foloni]

Hey poodmund, for some reason when I use the reflectors calculator, the minimum and maximum direct strengths are 0 and it’s breaking everything.

[bdole92]

Any chance of the GPP sheet being updated with the additional parts from the first sheet? I would do it myself but my excel knowledge is not good enough to merge them without breaking everything (believe me i tried)

[Poodmund]

On 7/2/2021 at 8:11 PM, DaBakonAder said:

Hey poodmund, for some reason when I use the reflectors calculator, the minimum and maximum direct strengths are 0 and it’s breaking everything.

Is the direct power strength 0 in the case of the antenna selected being a direct antenna and not a relay?

[Poodmund]

Update!

• Fixed the antenna power in the NF:Ex sheet for antenna parts that do not have the ModuleDataTransmitterFeedeable assigned i.e. a Feed Scale value of 0.

 

@DaBakonAder, this issue has now been resolved. There was an inconsistency with how some of the Stock Antenna parts, via NF:Ex's patches, have a Feed Scale value of 0; being the Direct Antenna parts of the Communotron 16-S, Communotron DTS-M1 and Communotron HG-55 and the Relay Antenna part of the HG-5 High Gain Antenna. Due to these parts having a 0 value Feed Scale, it was throwing the power value calculation for these parts to 0. 

I have resolved it by detecting if any antenna parts are selected with a Feed Scale value of 0 and then falling back to show just their flat antenna power value.

You can see this working by selecting one of these antenna parts, assigning a reflector part to it and seeing that the antenna power is not increasing. You can confirm this in game by right clicking on one of these antenna parts and seeing that it does not have the 'Render Antenna Path' option available as it does not have the ModuleDataTransmitterFeedeable module assigned to it.

[Noah Foloni]

Thank you so much!

[ctbram]

would it be possible to make a short video showing some examples of using this thing?  Either I am an idiot or things are not working.  There are no dropdowns just pages and pages and pages of what look like raw numbers so I don't know how to make use of it.   A short video covering a couple of examples would help.

 

Thx

[Poodmund]

On 11/21/2023 at 7:37 PM, ctbram said:

would it be possible to make a short video showing some examples of using this thing?  Either I am an idiot or things are not working.  There are no dropdowns just pages and pages and pages of what look like raw numbers so I don't know how to make use of it.   A short video covering a couple of examples would help.

 

Thx

Maybe. There are, literally, tutorial instructions on the page in a step by step format.

[Poodmund]

Updated the calculator with more accurate max/min distances between bodies as per: 

 

[Nuko]

Hello very nice tool. Im planing to use it with the outer planets and the near Near Future Exploration mods. But i don't really understand how the reflectors work. I thought a reflector had always a positive outcome, but when i put some reflectors in the cell of the spreadsheet i get reduced power and range compared to an antenna without a reflector. Should i put only high tier reflectors to matching tier antennas ?

edit: you can ignore this post, i started to understand the feed effectiveness and how affects the antennas.

Edited May 7 by Nuko