Oscillatory flow features are common in the unstart of hypersonic mixed-compression intakes and can be classified as low-amplitude or high-amplitude oscillatory unstarted flows. The low-amplitude oscillatory unstarted flow is driven by the shear layer from shock interactions ahead of the cowl, while the high-amplitude oscillatory unstarted flow is driven by the separation caused by shock–boundary-layer interaction on the ramp. While previous studies have observed these flow features and reported their associated frequency, there is no simple criterion available for predicting which mode will occur, and there is a lack of consensus on the appropriate frequency scaling parameter. We study a mixed-compression hypersonic intake in a hypersonic wind tunnel by varying the internal contraction ratio and the throttling ratio to observe various kinds of unstart regimes. Two significant conclusions emerge from considering the results for high-throttling-ratio conditions $(TR > 0.55)$ from the current as well as previous studies. Firstly, the actual shock-on-lip condition at the cowl corresponding to the unthrottled condition, as observed from schlieren images, demarcates the boundary between the two modes of oscillatory unstart flows upon throttling. Secondly, a suitable length scale $(l^*)$, defined as the extent of the subsonic region in the unstarted flow (as observed from the experimental schlieren images), gives the appropriate frequency scaling parameter ($f^* = a_0/4l^*$ where $a_0$ is the stagnation acoustic speed).