From: John Smith on Aug 27, 4:52 pm

Len:

Unfortunately, the only things more dead than CW is the brain dead
amateurs too dumb to stop sounding ignorant, I mean, before they opened
their mouths (or fingers on the keyboard) we only wondered, now we know,
having been shown time and time again... frown

Well, so be it, I'm saddened to see. I'll just try to inform
these poor souls (or pour souls in some, they obviously pouring
something before writing) what military radio IS, not what they
imagine it to be.

Ackshully, FM 24-18 is a good tutorial for a beginner. In re-
checking the link given, there's a download-the-whole-thing link
at the bottom but the file is roughly 10 MB in size. Takes a few
minutes to get. [glad I already had it on a CD) It has an
objective comparison of wire antenna gains in various
terrain/environment, untainted by advertising claims and
myths of some amateur users.

FM 24-24 is available from the Army Training and Doctrine Command
Digital Library. It is a veritable catalog of land force radios
and communications devices as of 1994. Public distribution. I've
given the link to it before in here. The ATDLS website has
changed slightly so those precise links I gave before won't get
there, but anyone can do so from the 'web, through their home
page. Some of the equipment shown has gone obsolete in the past
9 years, or it is in storage in a depot "just in case" or whatever.

The ITT 'web page has more informative technical material on the
SINCGARS family of radios. Aerospace and Ground Division at
Fort Wayne, Indiana, at the old Magnavox plant. Harris Corporation
has some more plus future things they are trying to get contracts
on, forgotten division name for the moment (somebody will pipe up
with the correct name in triumph and imagined glory). Harris
has already sold some SINCGARS-compatible work-alikes to the UK
last year.

SINCGARS is interesting in that it doesn't have so many of the
conventional controls. From day one it has a Touchscreen for
entering frequency, for entering net properties (frequency
hopping pattern). A little OS built into the internal micro-
processor. When commanding it to frequency/net operation, one
enters a "hopset" (colloquial) which is a rather large data
group with its own authenticators from a separate piece of
equipment to be used at local Net central. Internal power
demand at idle (such as in transport or listening only) is so low
that it all the entered data is retained until the LiON battery
is replaced. Internal time/frequency accuracy is phenomenal over
the full military environmental range. Newer models (the
SINCGARS Improvement Plan or SIP versions) will allow the "Plugger"
(AN/PSN-11) GPS receiver to connect to it to synchronize the
internal time/frequency to the GPS. The "Plugger" (military
refined nickname in place of what GIs have called it - the PSN)
saw its first field operational duty in the First Gulf War. A
very few PRC-119s were tried then, but not many fielded in 1990
since the first ones went to Army forces in Korea. The frequency
hopping rate is 10 per second, damn hard to get a handle on in
the field for either DF or interception. With digitized voice
or data, SIP versions have built-in crypto (selectable) while
the older versions needed external COMSEC keyers. It is also
"QRP"-like in that there's a three-position front panel switch
to select RF power output; DX it ain't but that isn't needed in
small-unit ops. The vehicular model with larger PA can push out
some RF for (easily) up to 200 miles. It ain't yer daddie's
old backpack raddio and it beats the old (but still neat)
AN/PRC-10 I once wore on weekly sojer training sessions in the
1950s. The Harris AN/PRC-150 covering HF through UHF is
compatible with some more bells and whistles in it, all in
manpack size and weight.

The AN/PRC-104 IHFR (Improved High Frequency Radio) family debuted
in 1986 out of Hughes Aircraft Co. Ground Division. For those
missions where HF is thought to be better, it can do so nicely,
even the manpack version having an automatic antenna tuner (using
latching relays to hold the L and C selections for the internal L
network). Little microprocessor in that, too, also controlling
the frequency synthesizer permitting good SSB performance. COMSEC
is external with that model but they handle all the voice/data
crypto formats. Early PRC-104s had a KY-114 knee key (why, I don't
know) which was left out of later models.

Back in World War 2 times, someone at the Pentagon thought it a
fine idea to improve the horse cavalry radio...a lighter and
better version than the 1930s model they did have but needed to
be set up and operated while the troop was stopped. The answer
was in the BC-511, the infamous "guidon radio" (set was IN the
combination guidon-bottom with top mount whip antenna, carried
like the old horse cavalry guidon pennant). That was thunk up
around 1942. However, at the same time HORSE cavalry was
disbanded in the U.S. Army! Motorola in Chicago made a bunch
of them. Neat little sets, AM and on low HF, crystal controlled.
So, a whole bunch of horse cavalry radios being made with no
horse cavalry to use it! Stagnated old-soldier thinking in DC.
Infantry got some of them, GIs calling it the "pogo stick,"
terribly clumsy to use on foot. Some new-soldier thinking got
vehicle adapters for them but those pogo-sticks went surplus
storage when the BC-1000 Walkie-Talkies were built (also by
Motorola in Chicago, also beginning in 1943). The SCR-300 (using
BC-1000 R/T) was FM voice-only on low VHF. It weighed the same
as the cavalry pogo-stick but was in backpack form and much more
mobile on foot, worked far better in the field as a radio.

Some of the "old radio ops" just can't give up morsemanship. It
must be part of their religion or whatever. Like the never-quit
horse cavalryman of long ago, their beliefs insist that "CW" or
on-off keying of a carrier is somehow "necessary" for today.
They can't be budged from that in "the service." :-)

It's like 60+ years ago, the cavalrymen insisting that all "good
soldiers" had to know how to ride a horse...even when the horses
were put out to pasture, glue, or pet food. So it is when all
other radio services have abandoned morse code for communications
purposes, U.S. amateur radio morsemen INSIST that morsemanship
MUST be in the amateur license test. Horsesnit.