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]

  On 3/9/2021 at 10:35 PM, king of nowhere said:

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

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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]

  On 3/10/2021 at 2:53 AM, 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?

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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

  On 3/10/2021 at 1:31 AM, Boyster said:

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

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yes, first thing i checked

  On 3/10/2021 at 9:51 AM, 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.

Expand  

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