DME identification

[hoss]

Why do DME's take longer to ident compared with NAV or ADF's?

Thanks in advance, hoss

[Tinstaafl]

The ident. period was set as part of some standard or other many years ago. 30 seconds, I think it is.

I *think* it was to help identification. Other types of navaids may share the same ident. Establishing different periods for the morse ident is one way of aiding identification of the correct aid.

I wish it was a shorter period. It's an annoyance to sit waiting so long for an ident, especially if you have other things that must be done. Bad luck if you miss a letter or two...

[Aussiebert]

apparently there is a technical reason for it, but i have no idea what it ismaybe bandwidth related, i am really not sure though

[Airspeed Ambassador]

If you listen to the idents of a co-located VOR and DME simultaneously, you will find that the spacing is such that the DME ident falls between that of the VOR after every third VOR ident. Is this significant? Not sure....