HF - Lost art or Lost Cause

[Radop]

Which battalion were you with as I spent 2 yrs working with 1 PPCLI as a reserve infanteer.  I was with them for RV 87 and courses on both sides of that ex.  I enjoyed working with them.  I spent more time with the regs while I was with the reserves than spent with my reserve unit. 

Up in Pet, I was in charge of the Rad Node and later the CP.  We were told by the Chief Comm Op to push the system but we seldom had frequencies.  They finally gave us three frequencies for vhf, one for HF and UHF and 3 pairs for SHF (one for band 1, band 4 and band 5).  It gave us a chance to play but not to test much.  We set up the systems though and got TMHS working through the WAS and over frequency hopping but we were across the compound from each other and never pushed the system for distance.  I wanted to have an exercise were we would slowly push the system out to the 80 Km range to see if we could get it to work.  Unfortunately, I was posted back to Kingston before we got to that.

 

[SigPigs]

Well let me get in my 2 cents!!  ;D  HF is an amazing medium that can do just about anything you ask of it. Problem is a lot of people don't know how to use it properly. Such as how propagation works for time of day and antennas etc. But that can be taught to the basic level very quickly IE: Daytime = high freq  Night = low  you get the idea. As for secure of course it can be secure! Sure it goes everywhere, but it's encrypted so it isn't a problem. You can transfer data at pretty good rate over HF actually, I was involved in a test for the Navy where we did 38.4K over HF for email systems, worked fine. Even if you are constrained to a 3KHz channel you can still do ok with data, I use a mode everyday where I send pictures with no errors and a 12K file takes only about 60 secs to transfer perfectly. If you do get a missing segment you ask for only that segment and the other station sends it to you to fill it in. Works awesome. Text messages can be sent in seconds, most of our traffic in th military is text so that's great.
Also once you acquire the kit for HF you can use it anywhere anytime, with no charges for airtime on a satellite.  ;D Use it for long haul around the world, which yes still works in the solar minimum, or use it for tactical comms in an NVIS role.
As far as training goes I could train someone to use the HF kit easier than running the Ottercom and setting up the friggin' cards and software. With a 138 during a walk I was talking to California on the whip, as I walked around Yellowknife. The rest of the guys on PT thought I was nuts...oh well I get that a lot!! LOL..

 

[CH1]

Sorry for the delay Radop. I keep skipping south of the border.
It was 1 Btn.  Don't know if you heard the scuttle butt about a few stray " rabbits" during a few of those ex's. I was working apart from the Btn, doing tac scenarios & BDF's.  More than a few groups were to ATC with renegades. Guess who I was. From some of the AA reports, there was a few surprised bodies. The only 1 I remember missing was in spring of 85, in the mountains. Had something to do with a wedding.

I worked with a couple of Edmtn 74 dets into about 92, on several occasions.

Don't know if you heard the CS "Bulldog" on those ex's. It wasn't even listed on the guard channels.
If you did & wondered who, you now know the answer to the unknown stn & why it wouldn't respond.
The other chatter you might of heard from a couple of the OT sigs, was about the old SOB, that wouldn't grow up. There was a couple of old Sigs Sgt's that I have history with on those ex's.

The only other possibility, would be if you saw a stray unidentified section about camp staying to them selves, away from the main body & doing their own thing.

Cheers

 

[Radop]

I think that the more we change the way we do things, the more we will eventually go back to HF as a back up.  They are talking that HF is a Fourth line back up next to the MT, Inmarsat, Iridium then HF.  I still feel it is training well spent but lots of people disagree with me.  They are looking to remove it from our training something like Morris Code.  I think this would be a grave mistake.

 

[Canadian Sig]

Still going strong at the squadron Radop. We just ran a two week course that included guys from out units ( some not even sigs ) and we also are still teaching it to Roto 4 guys.

 

[Retired RadOp]

Hi RadOp - I agree with you that it would be a mistake to take it out of the system. I got out in 01. I spent 4 fantastic years as a Sgt in the Ops Supvr role in Det Great Village NS. The HF eastern link, 96-00. We were the backup for Yugo, etc. The technology was excellent. We ran lots of ex/test Voice/RTT, with Yugo and proved the HF over and over again. When I left it was being remoted to Trenton. So I hope its still in use. It should not go away, and needs to be taught to the young lads. VVV...

 

[Radop]

Well sorry for not responding to you gents in a timely fashion.

That is good that they are taking it seriously at the Bdes still.  We did some training on it in May as well but was too quickly thrown togeather.

As for teaching it to the young lads, the reserve trucks I saw this summer before going overseas had no HF on it as I could see save one or two.

sad!!

 

[Weekendsig]

Replace HF BITE YOUR TOuNGE.

The biggest problem with Sat comm for the Canadian Army or at least CFJSR, is that we dont own any sateliites. So we cant directly control them, We have to contract out foriegn or domestic Civilian companies to act as LES.  And if something on their end craps out we we have to rely on a civi whos on call to come in. (once it took 10 hrs for him to show up and rest his side of the system). Also, recently the org that handles all deployed MT's lost power. They had back up power but for some reason it didnt kick in. Im sure this has been corrected. But as a result deployed MTs could not call back into Canada trhough the main dish. BTS, Ottercoms etc were used and thats why the MTs have em.
Finally and this is least likely, a nuke can block out Sat comms in an area up to a month while HF will work after 6hrs to a day later.

Deployed HF Assests are the best way in my mind to act as back ups.
They do need to be smaller and lighter (QRT is just too big). But the operator at the end has complete control over the entire pathway right back to his zero or what not.
And people who complain about propagation are just to lazy to change the antenna their using. God forbid you may have to work your circuit
Also the 138 Manpack is the lightest radio out there of that size. I put untrained Comm research tps who never saw the radio before on an island by them selves with a programed radio in ALE mode and never had a problem the entire time. Well till they boke the antenna base. My biggest complaint about the HF manpacks, vehicle and larger is the constant lack of spare cables, and other componets. QRT, and LCT, blow amps, power supplies, like they are going out of style

 

[daftandbarmy]

I used HF regularly in a dismounted role in Oman, Cyprus, Northern Ireland (various levels of encryption) and arctic Norway (winter and summer) with the British Airborne and Commando Forces. Clansman PRC 320. With a well trained operator, it was excellent. With bluffers, who pretended they knew all about how to use HF, it was awful. Being an officer, I was only qualified to carry my rad op's batteries and big steel thermos, but did so quite happily knowing that we could always get comms if required.

http://www.armyradio.com/arsc/customer/product.php?productid=2252&cat=0&page=

A colleague of mine, Gareth Wood, did the first self-supported walk to the South Pole in 1985-6  as part of the Footsteps of Scott Expedition. He ran the basecamp for a year following their hike using a PRC 320. He had comms from Scott base on the edge of the Ross ice shelf to London on occasion, and had regular comms with Chile and New Zealand. Morse comms was seldom a problem.

Nuff said....

 

[211RadOp]

Replace HF BITE YOUR TOuNGE.

The biggest problem with Sat comm for the Canadian Army or at least CFJSR, is that we dont own any sateliites. So we cant directly control them, We have to contract out foriegn or domestic Civilian companies to act as LES. 

Alright, it has been a number of years since you where at the Regt, so you no not what you are talking about.

Yes, the Canadian Military does not "own" any satellites. The Regt does own an annual lease on a sat, and the CCO has control over this lease. As a matter of fact, I am using it now for Ex IMAGE VIPER.

And if something on their end craps out we we have to rely on a civi whos on call to come in. (once it took 10 hrs for him to show up and rest his side of the system). Also, recently the org that handles all deployed MT's lost power. They had back up power but for some reason it didnt kick in. Im sure this has been corrected. But as a result deployed MTs could not call back into Canada trhough the main dish. BTS, Ottercoms etc were used and thats why the MTs have em...

Currently, the deployed MTs (not including the one I am in now on Ex, there are three) are using two different LES atleast, so the above statement is false. Not all the MTs would have been affected due to a power outage anywere along the path. Have you ever been to CFNOC or the SNOC at Intelsat? There are people there who can do a simple reset 24/7.

I have been doing this for 8 years now, and have never seen it take 10 hours for a tech to come in to do a simple reset. The only outage that took any significant time was an eqpt fault at the LES we used with MT2 in Kabul. This did take a few hours to fix, but certainly not 10 as you intimate above.

 

[Weekendsig]

I have been to CFNOC and dand It was in the news about the outage and it was restricted to canadian side of the net. the statements I made were due to actual events that happened to me while deployed on OP. The MT was using had 1 LES and through civilian systems tied into cfnoc.  The tech wasnt a military tech he was a civi who worked at the les in germany.  Im not bsing when I said  we where of the net for 10 hours . Out techs would do loop backs with the les and see them, but couldnt see ottawa. Techs in ottawa would do loops backs and see the les but not us. It took a few hrs to find out who to call and then get them to call the guy in germany and due to the huge time differences it was 3 am in germany and he was about an hr away from the les so 10 hrs is what the sitrep for the mt said that day. Im not making this up.                                                     

 

[Swingline1984]

Please pardon a lowly LMN weighing in on the conversation, but, don't the Chinese and Russians (and by proxy their allies/partners) have anti-sat weapons? i.e. lasers and ground/air launched missiles.  Would the potential for anti-sat warfare alone not provide ammo for maintaining HF capability/skills as a backup.  I'm a little out of my lane so I've strapped on PPE and crawled under the table.  :warstory: INCOMING!

Cheers,

EDITED: for a double negative (don't not)  ;D

 

[George Wallace]

Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  Have you done any research as to what altitudes the various satellites are in orbit?

 

[Swingline1984]

Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  Have you done any research as to what altitudes the various satellites are in orbit?

No.  But what brought on the question was an article I was reading in Decembers Discover Magazine entitled, "How to kill a satellite" (sorry I don't have a link).  It lists the various threat levels of potential anti-sat weapons.  It lists lasers as a "medium" threat as they believe the Chinese may have already tested targeting lasers on US sats.  It lists air and ground launched missiles as "high" threat since capability already exists and is relatively cheap.  Anti-sat nukes are listed as "low" threat since the fallout and EMP would damage the attackers sats as well.

Cheers,

 

[Swingline1984]

Found a link to the article I mentioned:

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/dec/the-8-ways-to-blow-up-a-satellite

Cheers,

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

Don't forget its more then the guys in the green that use HF, its also us Naval types who use it as well. We would be foolish to drop it.

 

[SupersonicMax]

And so does the Air component.  Used in Herc (that I know of) for very long range comms...

Max

 

[aesop081]

Aurora has 2 HF radios on board

 

[Navalsnpr]

Don't forget its more then the guys in the green that use HF, its also us Naval types who use it as well. We would be foolish to drop it.

Excellent point. All major warships have several HF transmitters and over a dozen receivers in order to have voice and data capabilities other Naval units, Maritime aircraft, AWACS and the Army during joint Naval/Army exercises life SCTF, MARCOT etc.

I will agree that with the abundance of Satellite systems that we do not utilize HF as much as we used to, however HF is still used especially with our aircraft. I can't comment on the Auroras, but I don't think the sea kings have any satellite ability. If you are a sea king pilot departing St.John's Newfoundland heading out to meet a warship on the Grand Banks around 150-200 nautical miles away and half way out to the ship the Aircraft beacon (distance & bearing to the ship) goes down for whatever reason, I'd want to be able to have HF Voice available so I can find my one and only landing spot in the middle of the ocean.

Satellite is easier when it works but is harder to setup and troubleshoot as there are many agencies (military and non-military) involved, however HF is more forgiving to a skilled operator.

The Amateur world current utilizes Pactor III coupled with computer systems in order to send/receive emails, images etc at a rate of 5200 Bit/sec.

 

[aesop081]

I can't comment on the Auroras,

CP-140 has SATCOM both for voice and data