DKS ATC: Alerts & Squawks

DKS ATC is silent by default: every alert is something you see. An alert shows in four places at once, so you notice it wherever you are looking:

• a row in the Log (bottom strip);
• a card in the banner across the top of the scope;
• a ring on the aircraft it is about;
• a count on the top-bar Alerts chip, in the color of the worst alert.

Severity

A condition (CA, MCI, MSAW, RWY, SAM, a LEAKER area, an emergency squawk, the feed) is different. It stays in the banner while it is happening, whatever its severity, until you acknowledge it. It leaves the banner when it clears, and its Log row stays unread until you acknowledge it.

Every alert

Working the alerts

• Acknowledge an alert from its banner card or Log row and it leaves the banner. A condition that is still happening (a conflict, an emergency squawk) stays active in the Log, and comes back to the banner only if it gets worse. Alt+A acknowledges every alert.
• E opens the Log with the keyboard on it: ↑ ↓ to move, Enter to locate the aircraft, Shift+Enter to acknowledge. Click a row to locate, double-click to follow.
• Filter the Log by severity, or show only unacknowledged rows.
• The Log's Settings set each kind per mode and edit the minima (conflict range and height and how far ahead it looks; the MSAW clearance and look-ahead; how far out short final starts for RWY). Each kind is one of:
  • Alert: the banner, the Log, the ring on the track, the alert count and its tone.
  • Quiet: the Log and the ring on the track only. No banner, count or tone.
  • Off: nowhere. Threat-ring entry, Threat, Merged and Faded also leave the Call deck, so switching off threat-ring entry stops TRESPASS calls. Drills keep their calls.
• Alerts follow mission time. Rewinding and replaying history never raises them again, and a recording played fast raises each one once.

Tones

Tones are off until you turn them on. Open the Log's Settings and switch on Alert tones in the Tones section. Once on, a short tone plays for each new critical alert of these kinds:

• Conflict alert: two of your flights inside the separation minima now (a predicted conflict stays quiet until it happens).
• Terrain (MSAW): one of your aircraft below the terrain clearance.
• Runway incursion: an aircraft on the runway in use while another is on short final for it or rolling for takeoff toward it (ATC mode).
• Emergency squawk: 7500, 7600 or 7700 (needs SRS).
• Missile on one of yours: a missile launched at one of your aircraft.

Each kind has its own sound, and each can be switched off on its own. Set the volume with the slider, and play a sample with the speaker button.

• An alert sounds once, when it first appears. If it clears and comes back before you acknowledge it, it stays quiet. Alerts already showing when you turn tones on, or turn their kind back on, stay quiet.
• The tone stops when you acknowledge the alert, when it clears, or after 5 seconds.
• Only one tone plays at a time. A newer alert takes over.
• Browsers only play sound after you click or press a key on the page. Turning the switch on counts. After a reload, tones start working after your first click, tap or key press (Esc doesn't count). If the browser pauses sound, the next click brings it back. A tone that can't play right away is skipped, never played late.

Squawks and radios (SRS)

DKS ATC reads each player's transponder and tuned radios from the server's SimpleRadio Standalone (SRS), the way LotATC does, through SRS's External AWACS Mode. Everything stays visual.

Set it up once (squadron admin):

1. Turn on External AWACS Mode on the SRS server and set a blue and a red EAM password.
2. On the server's card in Squadron Settings → Server Integrations, enter the SRS address and both EAM passwords. The passwords are write-only and stay on the DKS server.

A controller launched for one side only ever receives that side's transponders; with only a blue password set, nobody gets red ones. On a direct connection, connect SRS yourself from the Radios panel (host, port and an EAM password, never stored).

What you get:

• Data block words: {squawk} (the Mode 3/A code), {iff} (all modes) and {freq} (the first radio the pilot has tuned, in MHz).

• IDENT makes the aircraft's data block pulse.

• Emergency codes: 7700–7777 (EMERGENCY), 7600–7677 (NORDO) and 7500 (HIJACK) open the aircraft's full data block, led by the emergency in red inside a red frame, whether or not data blocks are on or you hid that block. Filters never dim or hide it, and when it's out of view a red marker on the scope edge points at it. They also add a top-bar chip and raise a critical SQUAWK alert. Alt+Q jumps to the next emergency squawk, then to anyone holding IDENT.

• The Radios panel: every player on SRS with their squawk and frequencies, emergencies first, searchable by squawk, callsign, name or MHz. Only on my frequencies filters to the frequencies of your positions (see Positions & Teamwork). Players on SRS but not on the scope, and other controllers on SRS, are listed separately.

• Find a code: type a code in the Radios panel's search and press Enter (or the target button beside it), or use Find squawk code… from Ctrl+K. Every aircraft on that code gets a flashing amber ring for 15 seconds; if nobody is on it, a note says so.

• Hold Q to see every squawking aircraft's code in place of its name in its data block (the "beaconator"). Let go and the names come back.

Assigned squawks

The Squawks panel (right dock) is the side's squawk table: the code you assigned each aircraft, next to the code its transponder reports. Every controller on the session sees and edits the same table.

• Assign a code in the panel, in the Properties panel's Squawk section, or from an aircraft's (or a strip's) menu under Squawk ›. Type four digits 0–7; clear the field to remove the code.
• Auto-assign draws the next free code from the code bank at the top of the panel (default 4001–4777; ranges and single codes, comma separated). It never hands out 1200, 2000, 7400, 7500, any other code ending in 00, or 7600–7777, nor a code someone already has or squawks. If two controllers auto-assign at the same moment and pick the same code, both rows show DUP: give one of them another code. Block for VIPER 1 in the menu gives a whole flight consecutive codes, lead first; the sparkle button in the panel gives every unassigned friendly a code.
• From the plan: when the Flights panel's mission plan is open and bound, each member's IFF Mode 3 from the planner's crew list fills in, once, wherever no code is assigned yet. A code a controller cleared stays cleared.
• Checks (with SRS): CODE when an aircraft squawks something else, DUP when two squawk the same code. Both raise an advisory alert, color the row and the strip's code amber, and add a line to the aircraft's open data block: what it squawks, then the assigned code (or DUP) flashing. An emergency code keeps its own handling instead. The {asq} data-block word shows the assigned code.