Hi! Thanks for your interest. I didn't have much time during the weekend, so I've just uploaded the mod without bothering to put up a description. :-)
Suggest improving mod description to explain how mod improves on the vanilla radar's circuit capabilities (and what limitations exist).
If you hook up a radar to the circuit network, it will transmit the input to all other radars on the same surface. If you hook up a radio to the circuit network, it will transmit the input to all other radios that are located on the same surface and are tuned to the same channel. So, you could think of radars as a fixed-channel radio network.
The "limited range" in the mod name doesn't refer to transmissions via radars, but to Shortwave Fixed. The original mod doesn't care about surfaces: If you transmit a signal via a channel, all other radios tuned to that channel will receive the signal, even if they are on a different surface.
are there 16 channels?
There are as many channels as you want! The channel is set with the dial in the bottom right corner (click on it to open the interface). There are two different ways to set a channel: by setting signals in the first group (signal name/count/quality and position in the group are considered) or by assigning a name to the first group (group name overrides signals).
can the channels for the radios themselves be circuit controlled dynamically (to scan through a range of channels, or are they 'set and fixed until manually changed').
Due to the way the mod is working, you must set the channel manually. Basically, the mod creates a hidden entity for each existing channel. All radios tuned to that channel will connect to that hidden entity. When all connections to such a hidden entity have been dropped, the channel is obsolete and the hidden entity will be removed. Dynamically scanning channels would require to connect/disconnect radios from hidden entities – and that would make the mod a UPS hog.
And how does mod perform at different game stages? (UPS overhead??)
There shouldn't be much overhead: The mod will act when a radio has been placed/removed, or when the channel on a radio has been changed. Basically, it gives you a bunch of isolated networks where a central hidden entity is connected to all radios. If you connect a combinator to a radio, the combinator output will be transmitted on the network. If you add a combinator to another radio, the signals from both combinator outputs will be added and transmitted via the channel/network.
I know this is brand new. but thats just a suggestion :)
Not brand new, actually. This mod is a fork and most of the code is still from the original mod. I've just added a layer to distinguish radios (original: force-->channel; this mod: force-->surface-->channel).
