Radios

[pmulcahy11b]

Whats the longest ranged radio we might expect to find in a military unit

I am trying to figure out how to stay in touch for a patrol unit over 100km away.

A Brigade and higher, AM sets (don't know the nomenclature) are issued to the TOCs and TACs. I remember when I was at G3 in Korea listening to Hawaiian radio stations.

[Legbreaker]

Hook it up to a nearby wire fence. A friend of mine did it on a signals course when his team got lazy and didn't want to erect the HUGE mast they were carrying for a 30 second sitrep back to base.

Apparently they got a good 50-60km out of it. Not bad for a rusty length of barbed wire....


While not a radio, the Pine Gap "over the horizon" radar station out in the middle of nowhere in Australia was basically little more than 20 year old electronics hooked up to a couple of fences. It was able to detect the US stealth bomber and fighter from halfway around the world back when they still officially "didn't exist" with pinpoint accuracy. Imagine what if can do a couple of decades later with upgraded electronics....

[Targan]

While not a radio, the Pine Gap "over the horizon" radar station out in the middle of nowhere in Australia was basically little more than 20 year old electronics hooked up to a couple of fences. It was able to detect the US stealth bomber and fighter from halfway around the world back when they still officially "didn't exist" with pinpoint accuracy. Imagine what if can do a couple of decades later with upgraded electronics....

Pine Gap was mentione in an episode of NCIS that I watched recently.

[pmulcahy11b]

Hook it up to a nearby wire fence. A friend of mine did it on a signals course when his team got lazy and didn't want to erect the HUGE mast they were carrying for a 30 second sitrep back to base.

Apparently they got a good 50-60km out of it. Not bad for a rusty length of barbed wire....

Forgot that one! I remember when we were teenagers, we'd go up on the roof and get a good 20 km if the conditions were right by taping a length of wire from a walkie talkie antenna to the unused TV antenna on the roof. And that's one of those "toy" walkie talkies they sell to kids. (And don't forget, I was a teenager a good 30-odd years ago...)

[headquarters]

yes...

Forgot that one! I remember when we were teenagers, we'd go up on the roof and get a good 20 km if the conditions were right by taping a length of wire from a walkie talkie antenna to the unused TV antenna on the roof. And that's one of those "toy" walkie talkies they sell to kids. (And don't forget, I was a teenager a good 30-odd years ago...)

toy walkies were a different breed back then..

[Marc]

Whats the longest ranged radio we might expect to find in a military unit

I am trying to figure out how to stay in touch for a patrol unit over 100km away.

Depending of the size, the purpose and the type of military unit. Keeping the things simple, if you to want establish a radio link between two points at more than about 30 Km, the way to do it is using an HF radio device. A platoon sized unit operating in normal conditions would not have this type ofdevice (and it would not need it). Most probably they would be using a VHF radio, like the prc 77 (or a modern version) described by HQ. Surely (but I suppose depending on each army), they will rely on the company or battalion level communications for and HF link.

A small infiltration group or long range patrol, regardless of its size, could have an HF radio to establish long range communication. This device can be man-portable or vehicle mounted, depending of the unit. For the man portable device, you have a lesser output power and you are limited to the batteries your group can carry, although a crank operated battery recharger is available in some types of radio. The vehicular mounted radio has not these limitations. You can have a powerful output amplifier (about 1000 W in some specialized vehicles) and your power is supplied from the vehicle or from a diesel electrical generator.

In both cases, with good trained radio operators, you can establish a radio link at hundred of kilometers, using the proper antenna. With the vehicle mounted equipment you can rely more in the "brute force" of the amplifier. In the man-portable equipment, the training and the "art" of the operator is critical factor. In both cases the worst (and easy to use) antenna is the whip antenna. And in both cases the use of the wire antenna (that could be deployed in a lot of different ways) would achieve the better results with the minimum output power. A very quick method with man-portable radio is to extend the wire antenna as an horizontal line with the help of two assistants and a compass. The operator guides the assistants, changing their orientation to position the antenna in the correct direction. Then, with the two assistants holding the antenna tightened, you can establish a quick link (the entire process can last for a few minutes).

[Caradhras]

Thanks for the info peeps. So, encryption was possible using small unit portable comms in the period of the original T2K campaign - I will make it pretty hard to get hold of and expensive for the group tho.

And for all the additional chat - useful stuff

[Nowhere Man 1966]

Here's an interesting T2K idea -- major units that become disrupted due a breakdown in the radio nets of frequency-hopping radios. I don't know if it's classified anymore (it was when I was in), so I won't say how the frequency "hopsets" are distributed, but if the hopsets for FH radios aren't synchronized, you won't be able to talk to each other any more -- and you won't even know it's happening until you notice the rest of the formerly-chatty net has become silent. That can really disrupt unit cohesion. Are they on a different hopset Have they been wiped out Was there a hopset error at higher HQ that screwed up the works (easily fixed, but not if higher HQ has been destroyed) If you need help, are you going to get it

Eventually, everyone will be talking in the clear as hopsets and scrambling modules can no longer be synched except between small units, but in between during the Twilight War, there will be a lot of confusion.

Plus it takes less energy to transmit and receive in the clear than it would with frequency hopping and/or digital radios because the computer in the radio would use energy for the synchronization and/or digital to analogue and analogue to digital conversion. I know when the batteries get low in some of those radios, they resort to "in the clear" transmissions.

Myself, on VHF, it is line of sight dependent as well as depending on height. I can hit ham radio repeaters 10 miles away on one watt with the rubber ducky antenna and once talked about 80 miles across Lake Erie and into Canada with the same setup. I think HT to HT, you can get a half mile to several miles depending on terrain.

[Nowhere Man 1966]

Forgot that one! I remember when we were teenagers, we'd go up on the roof and get a good 20 km if the conditions were right by taping a length of wire from a walkie talkie antenna to the unused TV antenna on the roof. And that's one of those "toy" walkie talkies they sell to kids. (And don't forget, I was a teenager a good 30-odd years ago...)

Which band did they use, the old CB band at 27 Mc or were they the 49 Mc models I'd like to get some FRS radios that operate in the 462 Mc Band and see how far I can go with those. In the Twilight timeline, they might be more rare since the war was going when FRS was approved by the FCC but you can always bump it a few years earlier. I can see military units resorting to those and even CB's with loads of them laying around.