From: John Smith on Aug 7, 3:38 pm

Dan:

Too bad the americans had not developed HS Digital Checksum Error
Corrected Voice Transmission Packet methods over spread spectrum... could
have filtered the CW audio and went right on, would have pi$$ed 'em off in
style! Oh well, too late for back then, but today we can!

The only thing WRONG with this back-and-forth is Dan's claim
of Disability from Vietnam. The Vietnam War ended in 1975,
THIRTY YEARS AGO. Had he been in communications with the
military in Yurp "after" that, he wouldn't have any "disability"
since he would be on active duty. If Dan Jeswald got out of
the military DUE to warfare in Vietnam, then his personal
experience from Yurp military exercises is THIRTY YEARS OLD.

Present-day, and back in the FIRST Gulf War times, U.S. land
forces most definitely have COMSEC (COMmunications SECurity)
which pretty well defeats old-style jammers. The first instance
of that was the AN/PRC-119 family, "SINCGARS," which is a
selectable digital-voice/data, single frequency or frequency
hopper on 30 to 88 MHz. It became operational in the U.S.
Army in 1989, first sets to Army in Korea. At frequency hops
of 10 per second, it is virtually immune to standard (old-style)
jamming and very resistant to "noise jamming." [it's damn hard
to detect, let alone jam] Later ("SIP") versions available by
the SECOND Gulf War ("Revenge of the Shrub") had fully built-in
COMSEC (voice scrambler no longer an external box) and half
the size of the original manpack. A QUARTER MILLION R/T sets
(manpack, vehicular, airborne) have been produced to the end
of 2004 and all fielded.

The land forces use a variety of radios and pieces of the EM
spectrum, NOT so totally dependent on HF as Dan would have
you believe. For MOST of the message transmissions, those
go through VHF, UHF, troposcatter, and microwave radio systems
with microwave dominating the major relays through military
comm sats...one reason why CENCOM could command the 2nd Gulf
War from Florida.

As to HF radios in the military land forces, the AN/PRC-104
family (20 W manpack through 400 W PEP vehicular) is a synth
frequency control unit for a full 3 to 30 MHz span and with
automatic antenna tuner (even in the manpack!) and direct
connections to COMSEC boxes. Designed and built by Hughes
Aircraft Ground Division, it became operational first in
1986. It will be replaced by the AN/PRC-150 family designed
by Harris, called by them "Falcon II." The "150" is more
resistant to jamming and has built-in COMSEC.

What these very amateur "military analysts" don't understand
is that the RUSSIAN comm equipment "sold" to Iraq in the
1st Gulf War ALSO HAD SS-LIKE RF SCRAMBLING. That was back
in 1990, 15 years ago. [they also had very Russian armor
in which they carried those NON-morse-code radios]

As to the alleged "CW intel from behind the lines" BS spouted
by a few in here back some 6 to 7 years, the U.S. Army had
the (now obsolete and replaced with newer) UHF portables
with built-in data, "chiclet" keyboards, LCD mini-screens
and with three different portable antennas to shoot to the
comm sats or to orbiting comm relay aircraft. None of this
nonsense of easy-to-DF HF slow-speed "CW" where the RF
was spraying in all directions from omnidirectional antennas.
Data rate then was 1200 BPS and the antennas directional.

Whatever the Russians do in amateur regulations is a FAR cry
from what they field in their army...as modern as any even
if they have meager maintenance and not as much of the good
stuff as the US military has. "WE" know HOW to jam them,
or at least most of what they have for radios...the reverse
has NOT been true for at least 15 years.

You can take my word of it or not. I didn't "stop" working
in communications for any part of DoD after my Honorable
Discharge in 1960. I've played with SINCGARS and entered
enough hopsets through its touch-screen front panel. I would
have personally liked to work on the PRC-104, at least in
operational testing, but other contract work called. What
I've remarked on in public here is FROM public information
that anyone can get, on paper or electronically.

Instead, we have all these other "military analysts" claiming
ten kinds of "knowledge" (some allegedly personal) which, in
all likelyhood, comes from Popular Mechanics or old TV shows.
Even the "FAS" (Foundation of American Scientists) is behind
the times with old data from the 1980s. Better than nothing,
I suppose. One thing for sure, the Russian amateur radio
regs are NOT formulated to "build up a pool of trained
morsemen" to serve in their military for their national
whatevers.

Geez, if all these renowned AMATEUR military radio experts
were telling like it is, the USAF recruiting posters would
feature "Air Crews For B-17s and B-24s" and the USA would
still have sojer pictures with pre-1940 'dish' helmets
and lace-up leggings a la 1940. :-)

Unless something new has come up, WT Docket 05-235 is NOT
concerned whether or not the Russkies still test for morse
code. The FCC doesn't regulate in Russia...any more than
Stebie Wundermurine "regulates" Somalian radio.

Whatever Russia cares to do after WRC-03 is THEIR concern,
not ours. We and the Brits have to help them raise their
mini-subs or record their interceptor comms as they shoot
down Korean civil airliners (played back in front of the
UN some time ago). On the other hand, a regular columnist
at ANTENNEX website is Russian and they are NOT sticking
with 1950s technology these days.

But, there's some ruff-and-tuff commie sympathizers talking
at ya, John, and don't nobody step in THEIR way! :-)

Dosvedanya droog Ivan

day off