No communication around kerbin; is this a weird bug or what?

[king of nowhere]

here I am, orbiting kerbin, with 2 RA-100 antennas, battery full, and i have no communication. yes, I did enable the extra ground stations, that's the first thing i checked.

is there some obscure game reason, or is it a bug?

[Serenity]

2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

is there some obscure game reason, or is it a bug?

Just in case, do you have CommNet enabled in the difficulty settings?

Edited March 10, 2021 by Boyster

[HvP]

I see two icons in the toolbar for mods which seem to control communications.  I don't recognize these icons, and they are not from the stock game.

Do you have mods installed that add requirements for communication networks?

[Guest]

I agree with HvP. Its that heart beat monitor mod from the other question about part failures (was it Kerbalism?) I reckon

[paul_c]

1. The RA100 is a relay antenna, not a direct one. Not that it matters because......
2. Orbiting at ~80km you WILL get dropouts unless you have some kind of relay network around Kerbin due to the location of the ground stations being "over the horizon". Go a bit higher, and you'll be able to see a ground station all the time.

If you do have a relay network, then because the RA100 is a relay not a direct, it will be trying to communicate with that relay network using the built-in aerial on the probe, which might not be powerful enough to do it.

The above occurs WITH CommNet enabled; and doesn't matter what power the ground stations are.

[king of nowhere]

10 hours ago, HvP said:

I see two icons in the toolbar for mods which seem to control communications.  I don't recognize these icons, and they are not from the stock game.

Do you have mods installed that add requirements for communication networks?

those icons are for kerbalism, and they don't really affect communication except in case of an antenna malfunction - but i get a notification in that case

11 hours ago, Boyster said:

Just in case, do you have CommNet enabled in the difficulty settings?

yes, first thing i checked

3 hours ago, paul_c said:

2. Orbiting at ~80km you WILL get dropouts unless you have some kind of relay network around Kerbin due to the location of the ground stations being "over the horizon". Go a bit higher, and you'll be able to see a ground station all the time.

oh, that must be the answer. i never noticed this behavior before