antennas and their behaviour in transmitting science

[KerbMav]

Currently the module seems to look for an antenna, extends it, transmits the data and retracts the antenna.

As an already extended antenna does not seem to cause any trouble, why can the module not check if there is an already extended antenna that it can use - or at least leave the antenna extended afterwards?

Is there a command to make a module check if the craft has an extended antenna?

And: Did I observe this correctly, can the game use multiple antennas to transmit multiple experiments at the same time?

[John FX]

It can but if all the antenna are transmitting any further jobs get queued on a single antenna. I like the antenna retracting personally. I have more issue with the larger dish using more power at the same range to transmit the same amount of data in contrast to reality...

[Depth]

What I do is to right click the antenna and select "Transmit data". This puts every data stored in queue, and the antenna transmits everything without retracting.

Putting the science gadgets into action groups sheds a lot of unnecessary clicking this way.

[KerbMav]

It is not even the delay in transmitting the next job, its more that I would like an antenna to stay extended - for visual reasons.

So the bigger antenna uses more energy - but we gain nothing?

[John FX]

It is not even the delay in transmitting the next job, its more that I would like an antenna to stay extended - for visual reasons.

So the bigger antenna uses more energy - but we gain nothing?

Oh, I believe it may be faster but when you only send a few times before you are done then it is way more important to me how much energy is used per packet than anything else (Large antenna uses twice the power to send the same data) as that decides how much weight in power generation i have to have...