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Table of Contents
Calibrate a DF Station
Calibration is a survey flight around a Direction-Finding station that removes its directional error, sector by sector, without upgrading the station. It costs nothing but flight time.
The airfield needs a built Direction-Finding station; a bare airfield cannot be calibrated. Open the Live Map and switch on the CAL layer to see which of the twelve sectors around the station are already calibrated (bright) and which are not (dim); the Calibration group on the sortie board lists every station still deaf in one or more sectors.
| Requirement | Value |
|---|---|
| Station | Active airfield with a Direction-Finding station at level 1, 2 or 3 |
| Aircraft | Any player aircraft, airborne |
| Distance from the airfield | 3.0 to 6.0 km |
| Height | 300 to 900 m above ground (not above sea level) |
| Hold time | 20 continuous seconds inside the same sector |
| Sectors | Twelve, 30 degrees each, true bearing from the station |
The Flight
- Take off and hold within the distance and height band above.
- Stay inside one sector for 20 continuous seconds — an orbit, a slow arc or a straight leg all work.
DF calibration sector 5/12 complete at KOBULETIconfirms it. - Move on to the next sector, in any order.
DF station calibration complete at KOBULETIappears once all twelve are done.
Leaving the distance band, the height band or the sector resets the dwell timer to zero, but only for the sector in progress — confirmed sectors stay confirmed. Watch for mountainous terrain: the height band is measured against the ground below the aircraft, not the airfield's elevation. An already-calibrated sector is skipped automatically, so flying the full circle is always safe.
What Calibration Changes
- Narrower cones. A fully calibrated sector roughly halves the daylight cone: Loop from about 86 to 42 degrees, Adcock from 52 to 26 and Watson-Watt from 32 to 16. Full values are on Enemy Detection.
- Better quality grades. An uncalibrated bearing carries a fixed penalty on the A, B or C rating shown in the contact tooltip.
- No effect on the night error. Darkness widens every cone, and calibration cannot remove that part.
- No effect on detection range or chance. Calibration only sharpens a bearing that has already been received.
- Applies network-wide: relay sensors assigned to the station use its calibration too, keyed to the direction from the sensor to the enemy.
Keeping It Calibrated
A calibrated sector holds full quality for 180 mission cycles, then fades linearly to zero at 365 cycles. One cycle is one server restart and one game day, six per real day, so a sector stays perfect for about a month of continuous server operation and is gone after about two.
A partly decayed sector still works and cannot be topped up — the flight skips it as long as any quality remains. Once it decays to zero, a fresh 20-second dwell restores it to full.
Upgrading a station clears all twelve sectors, since the new antenna has its own directional error. Calibrate after an upgrade, never before it.