Military experts say radio amateurs "highly knowledgeable asset in HF communication"

I'm with ya, brother - but I couldn't make it past boot camp any more!

 

There is always the non volatile two cans and a piece of string
G3SEA/KH6

 

Might be a Turtle and Hare situation in an extreme ' Event '
G3SEA/KH6

 

Yes but it has calibration built in. If you have no timing it will still work.

(JS8Call includes a manual clock drift tool that you can use to modify your application time to match signals you see / hear (or to an external time source like a Timex watch, a GPS handheld, WWV, or the roostercrowing). This is intended to be used as a fail-safe for when your synchronized time source is not available(like if you were out portable, away from cellular or GPS reception)

 

There has been quite a lot of recent military interest in HF, primary as a backup for SATCOM. As many posters here have pointed out, there is significant concern about SATCOM vulnerabilities. Here's a trade industry article from just last month:

https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefiel...renaissance-in-high-frequency-communications/

In addition to recent webinars and a whitepaper, I also gave an in-person talk on this at the AOC (Association of Old Crows) show in Washington DC a short while back and spent most of the rest of the day being approached by attendees who all basically said (a) SATCOM vulnerabilities are a real concern and (b) we need to teach the younger guys HF.

 

I've been reading this thread with curiosity.

Here's what I can't figure out:

If HF radios were an important element of tactical communication, wouldn't we already be hearing them in use?

It's not as if the whole world is at peace out there. Plenty of armed conflict going on at any given time.

 

Answer is: it depends. You would not hear them in the ham bands. Maybe tucked away somewhere between 1.8 to 30 MHz. So, where would you listen and if you heard something, would you be able to understand what you heard?
Adding to language problems, propagation problems and frequency problems, there's also the problem that some communications are scrambled to keep folks like us from intercepting them.

Most of the time, when you see "clandestine" communication equipment showing up in photos or videos they appear to mostly be VHF/UHF stuff, usually handheld radios of some sort.

 

The Achilles heel of modern warfare is not satellites/tanks/planes, it is the computer controlled communications web of our forces where central command orders given, right down to the individual squad members, is the necessity. When those nifty helmet radios no longer beacon GPS, no longer receive the commanders orders, no longer put the terrain map on the HUD, no longer give targeting information back to the big guns, to the Warthogs, etc. you are back to WWI.
If you are the enemy don't bother spending money on new weapons, spend it on EMP bombs / data jammers (spark gaps anyone?), GPS spoofers, laser sparklers, that wipe that sophisticated communication web off the map. Send out your squads with paper maps and hand signals to surround the confused enemy soldiers, who have never gone even an hour during childhood without their smartphone in their hands, and the war is over.

 

I'm sure that presentation to the AOC received great attention.

Here is a link to your white-paper too, provided by N1UL, The Rebirth of HF

An interesting read it ought to be educational and hopefully inspiring for many hams too, especially those Prepper's with just a minimal Tech license and a HT.

Lest thinking it takes an all-out EMP, or a SAT killer event, to generate the need for HF comms, the September article cited from C4ISRNET underlines that this is already a clear and present danger,

"Enhancements in HF come at a time when NATO members and partner forces are suffering from a disruption of satellite communications, particularly along the alliance’s eastern flank where Russian armed forces continue to conduct electronic warfare."

 

Well, I surely wouldn't. But on the other hand, I'd expect the authors of that paper to have awareness of such, so I'm surprised there weren't any current examples cited.

 

Does anyone know of a detailed study (unclassified) based on the NEMP testing done in the early 1960's ? Specifically the field strength of the pulse at various distances for various weapon yields. Yes, this is on thread....the military and HF radio survivability.

 

In my humble opinion, most of us, as "ham" operators, are not "amateurs"; we are more like unpaid professionals. We pass tests and then have experience in setting things up. We learn from others. We know how radios and antennas work. We are definitely an asset to this country.

Hf, morse code, digital signals, ssb, fm, am, vhf, uhf, pencil and paper, cursive handwriting, satellites. Lots of technologies, some ancient and some current, all perfectly valid and useful. It does seem risky to rely on only one of these in a situation where many lives are at stake. So, to say that digital is too easily disrupted, or that morse code is useless, or hf is useless, or that any of the above mentioned are useless or "outdated" or too "newfangled", seems short sighted at best, crazy at worst, in my opinion.

Another "Carrington event" is possible, is it not? Does anyone remember, we almost had one a short time ago? The "internet" is not infallible, and can go away at any time. A situation like the Carrington event would severely disrupt internet data, and satellite enabled navigation. Natural disasters do mess up the internet. When I take notes in cursive on a paper tablet (or water proof tablet) there is no battery to go dead, and a powerful electromagnetic pulse will not erase or destroy my writing. We don't need a computer to copy cw Morse code. If one is in a remote location and the digital equipment's communication is disrupted, morse code will still get through. Has anyone read about the "code talkers" in WW2 ? Lets be careful what technology we disregard, we may need it later when things are not "normal".

Now, you can dis me on any of this, but my point is we need to be adaptable and have plenty of back up plans; and not put all of our resources and efforts in one area. I think that might be what this article is about.

 

Karl-Arne has posted some quite interesting comments over in a historically related Ham Radio Discussions thread, starting with this one on WWII spectrum activity, and this one on differences in WWII radio technology.

 

There are a lot of references in the Wikipedia article on EMP. Maybe one of those has the information you're looking for?

 

26 years in Naval Communications, both ashore and in the fleet and never once had to use a computer, update software or drivers. All the functions that would be vital to solid reliable Radio communications has gone by the way side to save funding of schools to teach the basic skills. Todays communicators probably don't even know what CW stands for (or how to spell it). Our tactical communications units rely to heavily on modern technology.