Antenna rating low with level 3 tracking station

[Artiom4ik24]

Good day!

Recently I have experienced a problem with Comm Net. I am playing Science game mode therefore my tracking station is at level 3. Nevertheless, when I launch a probe with any antenna I got, I don't get the maximum rating of this antenna (which is stated in VAB near 'with L3 DSN'). For example, with RA-2 I am not able to reach Duna. When I click on the antenna located on the probe, it says: "antenna rating: 2g". Shouldn't I get at least 20g with RA-2 and level 3 tracking station? Any help would be appreciated. 

[jimmymcgoochie]

What settings do you have for the signal strength for the tracking station and antennas? If the tracking station is turned really low you won't get much of a signal.

Does your probe have a direct line of sight to the KSC? Unless the antenna has an unbroken straight line between it and the tracking station (or any other ground station if you have them switched on) you won't get a signal. You'll need to put some relays in place which can receive signals from both the probe and a ground station, and by using more powerful relay dishes on the relays you can use a less powerful antenna on your probes, rovers, landers etc. which are cheaper and smaller too.

There's a scenario that has an example communications network in the game, it has some useful pointers in it but you don't have to build your network like that and there are many other ways of doing it. How many relays you need round any particular planet or moon depends on what you're doing- if you're planning a large crewed expedition then it's good to have full comms coverage, likewise if you're running lots of rovers, but most of the time you can get by with one or two relays.

If you wait until you unlock some more powerful relay dishes e.g. RA-2 or RA-15 before launching interplanetary probes, you can make them double as relays once they've got all the science they can; the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is doing the same thing right now around Mars, it's a science probe but it also doubles as a signal relay. By the time you unlock the good relay dishes you should have all the science experiments unlocked too, so that probe can have ALL THE SCIENCE!!! instead of sending several different probes with newly unlocked experiments on them. 

One way to improve a relay network, particularly around other planets, is to put a really powerful relay on the same orbit as the planet but slightly ahead or behind, it's difficult to do but well worth the effort. Put one relay around Kerbin at 90 degrees inclination and as high as you can, with the biggest relay dishes you can on it- that will be your backup for when the Mun gets in the way of a direct link to Kerbin.

Edited April 11, 2020 by jimmymcgoochie

[Artiom4ik24]

Thanks for your reply!

I have extra ground stations enabled, range and DSN modifiers at 1.00. I put my probe on the launchpad so that it definetely has an unbroken straight line between it and the tracking station. The probe has an RA-2 antenna. When I right click it, it still says it's rating is 2.0g and I am not able to lauch it to Duna because it will lose signal halfway (I have tried)... Can you please tell me why is that happening?

[jimmymcgoochie]

Here's a nice diagram for the antenna ranges:

As you can see here, a level 3 tracking station and a single RA-2 antenna (2G) isn't enough to reach home from Duna for a significant part of its orbit, when the two planets are far apart. You'd need four RA-2s to have enough range when they're at their furthest from each other, and that's at maximum range which means low signal strength and I think that results in less science from transmitting experiment data home.

A single 15G relay dish has nearly double the range required to contact a level 3 ground station at maximum distance, so I suggest you wait until you unlock the RA-15 before going to Duna and instead try to focus on Eve- Eve is almost always in range with a single RA-2 (so 2 will keep the signal strength high), you get more power from your solar panels that close to the Sun (whereas at Duna you get noticeably less) and you can aerobrake to a landing in one go, as long as you bring enough ablator on your heat shields! Alternatively you could focus on gathering all the science you can from Kerbin itself and/or the Mun and/or Minmus, which will complete the tech tree very rapidly even with the science gains turned down to 20% or even 10%.

Diagram came from here:

 

Edited April 12, 2020 by jimmymcgoochie
typo fixed

[Artiom4ik24]

Thank you very much! I read some confusing information on other forums about RA-2 and it's range, that's why I couldn't understand. But now I see. Gonna build some more relays so that I have stronger signal

[linuxgurugamer]

On 4/11/2020 at 3:42 PM, Artiom4ik24 said:

Good day!

Recently I have experienced a problem with Comm Net. I am playing Science game mode therefore my tracking station is at level 3. Nevertheless, when I launch a probe with any antenna I got, I don't get the maximum rating of this antenna (which is stated in VAB near 'with L3 DSN'). For example, with RA-2 I am not able to reach Duna. When I click on the antenna located on the probe, it says: "antenna rating: 2g". Shouldn't I get at least 20g with RA-2 and level 3 tracking station? Any help would be appreciated. 

You can also look at this mod: