Tactical Communication - The HF Renaissance in the US Army

With the invention of of satellite, tropospheric scatter, Line-of-Sight (LOS) microwave and fiber optic communication technologies, HF communication's importance slowly faded for military communication, but it is now making a resurgence in communications planning. HF has always been robust, particularly over NVIS (Near Vertical Incident Skywave) communication paths for tactical communication.

West Point Professor COL Stephen Hamilton explains why HF communication is seeing a renaissance in the US Army for tactical communication in this presentation from the Radio Club of America 2021 Technical Symposium.



73, Mark ~ AE2EA

 

It ought to be one of the tools in the tool box.

 

Very interesting presentation. Not what I was expecting as this spent a lot of time on short range communications. No doubt the Navy and Air Force are quite familiar with long range HF, it's interesting to see the Army put HF in the realm of solving short range communication problems. I expected some mention of digital voice communications, and he delivered on that.

The mention of using an Android phone as a convenient means to get a digital radio interface was something I want to see more often in Amateur radio. Well, it doesn't have to be Android, or even a phone, but off the shelf touch screen devices should go a long way in bringing an easy to use interface to HF radios at low cost to the user.

Oh, and the low power demonstration was very nice. He used publicly available modes to show off. What more could they do with military grade stuff? I know, that's top secret.

If this is mostly just off the shelf gear and software then this gives some insight on what may come with this new war we are in. Russia apparently is lacking in their communications technology if people in the USA, or even in distant parts of Europe, can listen in on their communications. They should be able to lower their power, use digital modes, and minimize the people listening in and jamming by not giving away what frequencies they are using, and with digital modes that is "security by obscurity" which is better than no security at all.