FRS vs Mil Issue Radios

[a_majoor]

When I said hardened Linux tablets with wireless cards I was careful not to specify what wireless protocol should be used. There really is no reason the wireless card could not be a VHF emitter coupled to a military encryption and frequency hopping software. In fact, if you were to open up a 522 (DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME!!!!) you would find the hardware laid out in a series of cards, although not in the standard PCIMA card  format.

Remember, the purpose of communications is to transfer information, so lets get our collective heads out of the "radio" box. Maybe section commanders really need "Blackberries". Maybe the best way to set up TF CPs is to have mobile videoconferencing down to the company level. Maybe we ned to concentrate on visual signals and suppliment them with hand held laser pointers. Maybe we should hypnotize soldiers and give them their orders and commanders intent that way. Think out of the box!

 

[George Wallace]

So we do away with radios and equip everyone with a "Combat Cellphone" where we can use audio, visual, or Text messaging.  We can take photos in situ and use them to develop our plans for quick attacks, etc.  Use the vibrate mode to cut down on noise.  Everyone could get synchronized time, text orders with photos, etc.  Mobile Cells would have to be deployed.  Encryption would have to be developed to military standards. 

Only concern would be range, if at a distance from a Cell Transmitter/Receiver.

 

[Carbon-14]

Really? Hrm, I must be behind.

Do you know some of the specifics or do you have a link, I'd be interested to know.

A quick google of "crack WPA" comes back with links.  I think Aircrack has some WPA cracking.  I think its brute force but if you use a simple PSK, it'll be cracked quickly.  I just came off a SANS course a couple weeks ago and the instructor mention something new, but i don't recall what it was.


Back to Linux tablets.  Are they rugged enough yet?  I know many companies are coming out with some pretty incredible stuff.  But I've heard they've gone through several mail servers in Afghanistan..  And that's a sheltered, air conditioned (I think), static installation.  That place kills electronics.

George:  Wouldn't cellphone towers make tempting targets?  You'd require security to protect them.  Even then... <shrug> :-\

 

[George Wallace]

George:  Wouldn't cellphone towers make tempting targets?  You'd require security to protect them.  Even then... <shrug> :-\

It isn't a good idea, but CPs and RRBs would be the Cell Towers.  Then if it could be reduced down in size, each vehicle would be a mobile Cell Tower.

EW would say that it would be easily detected.  True; but if everyone on the Battlefield was emitting, then who is who?  In the Cold War the Canadians would be easy to detect using EW.  They would be in the area that wasn't emitting (Black), while everyone around them was making "noise".

It will depend on how you want to think about 'Electronic Deception'.  Be able to hid it, or just make so much noise no one can tell the difference.......then again; we have the technology to do that to.......damn!

 

[couchcommander]

LOL, well I guess it's a good thing I wasn't allowing wireless connections on any network with access through the firewall.

Another one bites the dust.

But it looks like that SecNet is already experimenting with sending military grade encryption over IP networks - IMO a definite step in the right direction. Opens up a whole range of ready to go technologies and software.

 

[Carbon-14]

It isn't a good idea, but CPs and RRBs would be the Cell Towers.  Then if it could be reduced down in size, each vehicle would be a mobile Cell Tower.

EW would say that it would be easily detected.  True; but if everyone on the Battlefield was emitting, then who is who?  In the Cold War the Canadians would be easy to detect using EW.  They would be in the area that wasn't emitting (Black), while everyone around them was making "noise".

It will depend on how you want to think about 'Electronic Deception'.  Be able to hid it, or just make so much noise no one can tell the difference.......then again; we have the technology to do that to.......damn!

I think I understand what you're looking for.  Basically you want the range, encryption, versatility of a VHF radio with a point-to-point and Time Division Multiple Access/digital capability of the cell phone network?  Do I understand you correctly?  I hope that made sense.  I think that would be great.  I'd bet someone, somewhere is working on it.

 

[George Wallace]

And I used to think James Bond movies were all fiction, until I found out that a lot of his technology was 'ancient'.  I am sure without a doubt that the Cell Phone has been trialed in the past, but with the rapid advances in what we are seeing in Cell Phone technology and miniaturization, I am not sure where or how far it has headed.  I am sure that it is in the future as two way comms, replacing radio, in HUD displays in turrets, aircraft cockpits, helmets, etc.  It will put SAS and all the others into the museum.

 

[buzgo]

LOL, well I guess it's a good thing I wasn't allowing wireless connections on any network with access through the firewall.

Another one bites the dust.

But it looks like that SecNet is already experimenting with sending military grade encryption over IP networks - IMO a definite step in the right direction. Opens up a whole range of ready to go technologies and software.

Read about TACLANE (KG-175) and AltaSec (KG-250). They are also IP encryptors.

Alot of the stuff you guys are talking about is already in production/use. The system I described earlier was used in Iraq and I believe it still is. From what I was told, the troops using it would move into location by air assault or whatever, and would deploy the transmitter kit on the highest point. Then repeaters would be deployed throughout the area. This allowed the troops to have comms with the system as they came into the objective.  They also stuck an access point on one of the blimps they have deployed there. The box I saw is basically a rugged iPaq. They have a camera built in and if they detained someone they would take a shot and send it back over the net for instant ID. The GD guys told us that it was also very difficult for the sigint guys to pickup...

 

[DG-41]

Remember, the purpose of communications is to transfer information

No, it's much more than that - and I'm not talking about data either.

The fundamental purpose behind the radio is to allow a commander to have influence on the battle over a larger distance than his immediate person. It is a personality and leadership extension device. A leader with the appropriate voice skills can project his presence directly over the radio and have almost as much effect on a subordinate as if he was standing right there.

Be that to calm somebody down, instill some courage, shame someone into action, reward good performance... we've all known commanders who could put *volumes* of meaning into a few short words, via modulation of tone and timing.

But transmitting that emotional sidechannel takes VOICE. You need to HEAR the voice of your commander (or your subordinate) to pick up on that extra information. No "combat Blackberry" is going to be able to meet that need.

DG

 

[GO!!!]

Recce, I would far prefer an accurate, marked map, along with written instructions forwarded to my hand, to the loving persuasiveness of my supervisor.

While I agree that tone can be helpful in creating action, I think that all of the misunderstandings that could be avoided by commanders sending more detailed orders and updates to subordinate c/s would more than make up for the lack of personality transmission, as it is so often the signallers that do so much of the talking anyway.

 

[a_majoor]

I saw hardened tablets at AUSA last year from this company http://www.inter-4.com/ which included the capability of voice through a process known as VoIP.

Just think RecceDG, you could project the trace and then tell that dumbass on the other end to read the map. While your point is well taken, often the amount of distortion over the channel makes "reading" the emotional tone of the sender impossible. Well trained signalers speak in a clear, even tone so the person at the receiving end can understand or copy the message, filtering out a lot of the emotion as well.

The best way to influence the battle if you are not present in person is through being able to transmit clear information. Would the "Charge of the Light Brigade" have happened if the message "Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Horse artillery may accompany. French cavalry is on your left. Immediate."  wasn't so ambiguous (Go ahead, try and figure out what it means without a map, and knowing there was enemy artillery visible on three sides of the valley). Since Captain Nolan apparently didn't know what was being referred to either, off they rode into the valley of death......

Given that units, sub units and even sub sub units can be separated by several or even several tens of kilometers distance in modern operation's, there is plenty of room for uncertainty and ambiguity to creep in, so we need all the help we can get. A well designed system should have several "fall back" modes, the "blue Tracker" system used by the United States in OIF allowed the passage of simple text messages, and due to the technical difficulties suffered by other systems, often became the default communication channel to the far ranging American forces. Whatever we choose to use in our next generation of comms needs to be designed with that in mind.

 

[c_canuk]

I like the idea of tablets, but Cell phones wouldn't be effective cause to talk to many stations at once you either have to call the individually or set up conference calling... the reason Cells work better is their tower are like 300 feet high, while our masts are only 40 feet, plus we don't just find the highest hill to put the tower on, we have to take other factors into account too

 

[c_canuk]

Through 13yrs in the Infantry with a break in the middle as a crewman  I have NEVER had legacy or TCCC radios perform anywhere near the ranges quoted in  the manuals  NEVER.  15-20 km for a 522 in a LAV, amped or not. BULLS@#T

uh huh, and where are you always sited? On the plains of Saskatchewan with lots of nice wet earth between the two points or in gully’s trees, on sand, etc? oh right the latter… well if you actually took time to comprehend the manual rather than just read it you would have realized that in less than ideal conditions (ie if you don’t have line of sight when using line of sight frequencies VHF) no you are not going to get max range… this is why we have RRB, if you need RRB ask for RRB, you will get RRB, Using RRB strategically will allow you to get comms through reliably by putting them in the right location for RRB rather than only relying on the comms you get by placing your only radios in strategic positions and hoping to get comms, rather than employing RRB to help RRB the signals with RRBs placed strategically for RRB while your LAVs are placed for fighting. RRB!

I am the closest thing to a comms guy in my platoon having been a signaller for many years, I can get a CI to do whatever I want WHEN THE 522 WORKS.

you know I never have problems with the 522 in with CIs it’s always a Net ID that’s wonky or the NAU is flaking out, rarely have a problem with a 522, I’ve unbolted many a NAU in the field and bolted in another, but have hardly ever had a problem with my 522s… oh I know, I don’t treat my 522 with contempt, I treat it as well as a weapon… because, especially for you, it is a weapon, while your personal weapon can only deliver one bullet at a time, or your LAV only a section at a time, through the radio you can call in fast air or artillery, another section of Infantry, Armour, Etc so treat it with the respect you’d treat your LAV… if it gives more than a 0401, or 0301 error when you turn it on get it fixed, if the techs won’t fix it, do what you’d do if the techs wouldn’t fix your LAV, raise merry hell about it. Don’t wait till the radio completely fails… also most radio problems are from excessive shock, or voltage overload (i.e. turning the radio’s on before starting the vehicle, flipping the main power, etc.)

  Every time we marshall to go outside the wire, radios that worked yesterday, all of a sudden dump crypto or lost net ID or some damned thing.

see my statement above… also it takes what 30 seconds to do a load easy and 30 more to set net IDs how about you actually do a radio check every time you get in the vehicle, much the same way you test your weapons before you go outside the wire or range.

What is this crap about the 521 being for section internal comms?  Were they gonna give us 10 per section, in THE WHOLE INFANTRY?  Yea right.  I couldn't carry enough batteries if I tried.

YES, YES THEY WERE however since the whole infantry refused to use them because they refused to read the manual and learn what they were for, and kept complaining that they didn’t work because they were trying to get 77 set ranges of a radio designed to not eminate more than 100 meters or 3 km in an EMERGENCY procurement shelved the project rather than waste money.

Carry that many batteries? That’s why the carrying case has a spare battery pouch, and the batt charger charges half an 8 man section’s batteries at once. Not to mention that the lithium batteries last for 24 hrs, so a weeks batteries is like what 3 lbs?

    The bottom line is you damned near have to be an electrical engineering technologist to get TCCC to work, or keep working.

little exaggeration here, an electrical engineering tech”nologist” would be able to build this system from the ground up… you just need to read and comprehend a couple 4 page pamphlets, get over your resistance to change, and actually practice with the radios you have.

We in the infantry do get the full version of the course but the guy isnt gonna be a signaller for his whole career. 

what course? The 3 day 522 course that teaches you everything from hopping to crypto to setting the 522 up as a modem… I doubt that. Or the whole TCCCS IRIS course? I doubt that too.

We dont have the time for all the set up synchronizing, ensuring they have the same FLASH?,.  Sig ops guys, we don't blame you guys for the radios, but don't defend the crap.

Ensure they have the same flash? You make sure all your rifles have the same mods don’t you?

Set up Synchronizing…. You are using hopping? That’s the only time the 522s have to sync that I know of… and it’s all automatic when the master holds the PTT when initiating the net… of course you have to enter the TOD and not including keying in the actual time it’s a whole 2 buttons. If you practice you can do hopping programming in like 2 minutes including the sync.

In feb I got a 1 day course on the 117 from a 20 year old American kid.  I can make it do what I want every time, and it always works.

I can teach you in an hour how to punch in freqs and to a load easy, and the 522 works, and you can make it do whatever you want every time, as long as you treat it like it is supposed to just like the 117.

It does Sat comm too.  Every platoon there has em and all meaningful comms goes through em.  If we had trays for em we would gladly drive over the 522's.

I;m assuming that there means Afghanistan, if so yes you need 117s because VHF does not work in mountains areas, because of all the ROCK between you and the other station, SAT comms are pretty much the answer, or setting up RRBs all over the place, like they did in Bosnia.

when none of the good kit isnt available at home on ex, we use  FRS.  This is the reality.

so instead of figuring out how to make the kit work and practicing with it so you know it inside out and backwards , you illegally use non secure means which our allies don’t use, so when you do get to theatre you are useless… good plan…

let me show you how silly you sound to me


Through 8yrs in Comms I have NEVER had the C7 perform anywhere near the ranges quoted in  the manuals  NEVER.  30 rounds in a mag? Always Jams, and it’s too hard to get them all in there. I am the closest thing to an infanteer guy in my platoon. I can get a C79 Optical to do whatever I want WHEN THE C7 WORKS.  Every time we marshall to go outside the wire, C7s that worked yesterday, all of a sudden jam or totally miss the target or some damned thing.  GOD help you if you turn on AUTO.  The sky really does fall then.  What is this crap about the C9 being for a section?  Were they gonna give us 2 per section, in THE WHOLE COMMUNICATIONS?  Yea right.  I couldn't carry enough boxes of ammo if I tried.    The bottom line is you damned near have to be an mechanical engineering technologist to get C7s and C9s to work, or keep working.  We in the signals do get the full version of the course but the guy isnt gonna be a infanteer for his whole career.  We dont have the time for all the set up bipods, ensuring they have the same mods?,.  Infantry guys, we don't blame you guys for the rifles and guns, but don't defend the crap.

    In feb I got a 1 day course on the SA80 from a 20 year old British kid.  I can make it do what I want every time, and it always works.  It does grenades too.  Every platoon there has em and all meaningful fire comes from em.  If we had mounts for em we would gladly drive over the C7's. When none of the good kit isnt available at home on ex, we use Canadian tire.22 Cal hunting rifles.  This is the reality.

 

[buzgo]

c_canuk - are you on the GDC payroll or what? Do you work for the LCMM or something? I've never heard anyone toeing the TCCCS/IRIS party line like you are...

I have to agree with the guys above - the system is workable but it is shite.

 

[c_canuk]

_canuk - are you on the GDC payroll or what? Do you work for the LCMM or something? I've never heard anyone toeing the TCCCS/IRIS party line like you are...

No I'm not on their payroll, I'm just not a sheep Baaing along with the others, I have my own opinion based on my own experiance.

Back when we used the old legacy kit with frigging tubes and all, when it didn't work you didn't just throw it away and have a good cry and whine why can't we use CB radios like truckers, you frigged around with it until you got it working and learned the equipment's quirks and moods, you learned how to guestimate the range you could expect from the radio accuratly, but now with the new stuff everyone thinks it's acceptable to just give up and use cell phones and FRS radios and it disgusts me because the new kit doesn't have moods, it tells you what is wrong, and has a lot less problems.

I never got the conversion course, I sat my ass down in the back of a truck and learned how to use the kit, I didn't just go "this stuff is crap I wanna use a POS civvy radio on a civy freq illegally".

I've been using 522s all summer and not had a problem with one yet. I just got home from the Golan, and used radios made by motorola which use a similar freq range as FRS Radios... the damn things broke down all the time and no one new why... we had theorys involving time of day, moon phase and if we had rain in the last 30 days... Not fun when the Mission commander comes back from his little house in Damascus demanding to know exactly why you never answered his driver's radio check.

I think TCCCS implementation is crap too, but the 521 works fine when you use it for what it was designed for, the 522 works fine when you use it properly and take care of faults, and the 138 works great...

only the 522 is associated with TCCCS and only because of HIDS which was an add on for us.

my point is that the 522, the 521 and the 138 are perfectly fine radios on their own, and I'm sick of people saying they are crap when they are more reliable, powerful, and have more features designed to keep you alive that what we had before. The radios we have do exactly what some whiz bang piece of kit they've only read about on the Harris website but never used.

The problem is mainly the operator has just decided to not like the radio because they didn't get to pick it and all the old farts who hate change pine for the legacy crap. So they use some piece of crap FRS that doesn't do half of what the 522 does, and will set them up for further failure when they go overseas and HAVE to use NATO spec radios. I've used FRS extensively, you get a range of 5 - 10 KM in ideal conditions, anybody, not just EW, can and will break in and screw with you. Plus FRS and GRMS don't have umpteen billion channels, they have about 22 channels and privacy codes, so if someone on a  different privacy code is TX the same time you do, you jam eachother and don't even know it. Not to mention that these are the same frequencies that a myriad of radio devices work on as they are free channels, and thus every 5th word is garbled when near any built up area  ie URBAN, and because they work on such low TX power, they are so easily jammed it's not funny. Not to mention NO RRB, no Amps, no Mast, no more powerful base stations, no cyrpto, no hopping, no selective call, no data. Did you know with the 522 if you want you can send images and web cam video? those hardened tablets people were talking about earlier would go great with em.

The problem is not the radio, it's poor planning, and knowledge of how to use the radio and resources. I guarantee that if they would request a few RRB sites comms would be perfect, but no one wants to ask someone else to lend a hand it seems.

I have only come across 3 radios that I couldn't get working in less than 5 minutes and in 2 cases the radio had been giving more and more progressively worse errors over a span of weeks and only when it failed had they brought the radio to someone, and the last case was because one of the earlier flashes was not compatible with legacy radios, which has been fixed a while ago.

The bottom line is not the radios are crap, it's that they are misused, and their operators don't work within their capabilities. Complaining that in the hilly forest you can't get 40 km on whip is akin to complaining that the C7 can't Peirce an Abrams' armour, the even more ridiculous part is then saying if we had the SA80, which fires the same round, it would do a better job. VHF is VHF is VHF and that is what NATO is going to use and there is a good reason for that.

If you can't get comms you move until you can, if you can't move you throw up a mast and/or use RRB.

If your radio gives errors get it fixed

Don't program your radio's the night before, turn off the power, then expect it to be ready to go without verifying it the next morning when you move out, especially when you send a surge of power through them cause you didn't turn off the radios you when you turned off and on vehicle power.

90% of the time when you get an error message up up T is all you need to clear them all and get comms. And if it's giving errors, there is a reason, something is failing.

Use ECO mode to save power and prolong battery life.

 

[GO!!!]

c_canuck,

Back to reality now,

-Where broken radios never come back if they are sent to be fixed;
-Where RRB sites and pers to man them don't just pop out of nowhere just because you asked for them;
-Where 8-10 year old rechargeable batteries that don't hold a charge die at the drop of a hat;
-Where comms are a part of our jobs, not our raison d'etre;
-Where radios that function better, longer and lighter are available at Wal Mart, for what we need them for.

Under ideal conditions, with the right kit, I can make TCCCs work too, but we don't have shelves stacked with spare NAUs, or the time to spend troubleshooting a system that should have worked right the first time.

TCCCs works great in the utopian test bench world you seem to live in, and in which it was designed, but here in the hot, dusty real world, without spares of everything, it is more of a hindrance than a help.

 

[c_canuk]

-Where broken radios never come back if they are sent to be fixed;

then the problem is not the radio, nor the tech, it's that there are not enough of them, so how is buying a different radio that does exactly the same thing and getting rid of the 522s going to make a difference you still won't have enough... focus on getting more radios rather than replacing what we have

-Where RRB sites and pers to man them don't just pop out of nowhere just because you asked for them;

this is why Comms is a trade, I bet any res comms unit in canada would jump at the chance to provide RRB for you if you just asked. you can also make your own unmanned RRBs just by taking 2 522s and linking them with the cable if you don't have any get a tech to make a couple, they only cost about 3 bucks to make. all you have to do after that is press RRB on each radio until you see a Capital R on the display and set each radio to one of the two freqs being used by A and B Nets that you want to join. I know at my unit we could during the fall winter spring provide at least 2 trucks and probably up to 4 additional RRB stations within 24 hours and upwards of 10 RRB Stations in a weeks notice. Plus I know for a fact Petawawa has a rears truck and the ability to field several RRB stations as I was in the A Ech Comms Det for First light last year, and also personally manned an RRB in that trg area.

-Where 8-10 year old rechargeable batteries that don't hold a charge die at the drop of a hat;

again not a problem with the radios, if you get replacements that use the same batteries is that going to solve the problem? no we need new batteries... use up your stock of lithium batteries too... you can order new batteries, I got a pile of them in my stores that we ordered as our old ones are sent in NS

-Where comms are a part of our jobs, not our raison d'etre;

which has what to do with changing our radios? Comms is my Raison d'etre, it is why my trade exists, and we are their to provide support, if you don't ask for support you don't get it.

-Where radios that function better, longer and lighter are available at Wal Mart, for what we need them for.

I've got a few sets of those walmart radios, they do not have the same range, do not last longer when using lithium batteries while I will admit carrying 48 hours of battereis for a FRS is a little lighter, do not function better especially in urban areas. Not to mention the short falls that I've already mentioned.

the only reason FRS radios work for you is you had a vested interest in finding out their characteristics and work within them, what happens when you have to talk to someone 40 km away, I'll tell you what you do, you use 522s with a mast and or RRB, so why shouldn't you use them the rest of the time?

 

[buzgo]

The radios we have do exactly what some whiz bang piece of kit they've only read about on the Harris website but never used.

117's were purchased for the TF quite some time ago. I've seen pictures with the TACSAT antenna mounted on a LAV. So I would say that the TF is using them overseas as we speak. Also - I don't recall there being an IRIS piece of gear that has quite the capabilities of the 117...

what happens when you have to talk to someone 40 km away, I'll tell you what you do, you use 522s with a mast and or RRB, so why shouldn't you use them the rest of the time?

I would just use the 117 and be done with it.

 

[c_canuk]

not my point, you could use a 138 in this role too.

The 117 adds a capability we didn't have which is a manpackable sat comms... we have sat phones but thats not the same thing.

the 117 is a very vesitile radio, but we don't have many of them...

my point is that FRS radios do not provide the comms we need, and instead of getting rid of radios that work just fine we should add to the numbers we already have, and aquire more resources, like the 117s, we have to do the job.

I'd love to have a butt load of 117s come down the pipe, I'll learn to use any radio they give me. Just don't take away the 521, 522 and 138 just because the 117 exists, they have a use and getting enough 117s to replace the 521s, 522s, and 138s is a waste of money as 90% of the time you don't need a 117, and this would ensure that yet again we don't have enough units in the system nor enough parts to go around.

I just don't see any reason to get rid of the 521, 522 or 138, they work fine, and we have the resources to use them, so why short change ourselves and get ourselves back into the same problem we are having now, by trash canning what we have just because we get a few 117s in Afghanistan? If we hadn't trashed the Legacy stuff when the 521s, 522s and 138s came on line we'd still have loads of radios we could use, plus we would have a force that has experiance linking legacy with new. all they had to do was keep the 77 sets around.

 

[c_canuk]

we should trash can the rechargable battery model and go back to disposables like the 77 sets... I agree 100% on that