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Subject: Bad Radios
Thomas    6/18/2003 4:01:26 AM
An interesting question popped up on the other board:
Why are there so many poor quality radio systems in military service?

Is it the "old stock" factor? Other example: The US army was during the indian wars poorer armed than the indians.

Is it "overdesign"? The equipment have to meet so demanding specifications, that the original purpose is lost.

Thoughts and experience?
 
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Heorot    RE:Bad Radios   6/18/2003 9:06:28 AM
It's the lead-time from initial decision to final implementation that is the problem. In the case of one British system (Clansman) development was plagued by the procurement system. The technology design was fixed early, technology passed it by but the government insisted that it be developed as originally specified. By the time it came into service, 18 years had passed and it was obsolete but it had to be used because so much time and money had been spent developing it. This quote from the Iraq war "The army's ageing Clansman radio system - due to be replaced in two years time - was so useless tank crews had to stop and get into a "huddle" to communicate with each other." quoted to the BBC shows how bad it is. The new Bowman system to replace Clansman is already 7 years late. New in-service date is March 2004 but the army won't be fully equipped until 2007.
 
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Thomas    RE:Bad Radios - Heorot   6/19/2003 2:57:37 AM
Oh I see. It's the old game of "total integration". You want to integrate all information to obtain an overall picture free of irritating technical obstacles. This takes so long, because some of the obstacles are not merely technical, that the whole set of assumptions have changed in the mean time. Or what???
 
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neutralizer    RE:Bad Radios - Heorot   6/23/2005 6:32:44 AM
A tad underinformed on Clansman. It entered service in 1980 and at that time was state of the art, for example it was about the first to use 25kHz freq spacing. It was also light, powerful, designed as a whole, good antennas, excellant veh harnesses, etc, and very reliable - the army over-stocked on spares so when they lost lots in one of the big ord depot fires in the mid-80s it didn't matter. However, I think it may be true that to save money it wasn't designed for the top temperature range needed for global operations, just that appropriate to NW Europe. Furthermore other eports have stated that it was OK in Iraq, although the extended distances the UK formations were operating over meant that even on the highest power setting range was still a problem. There were complinats, mainly from the para, about radios in the Kosova operaiton, their it might in part be the terrain, VHF is always a bit tricky in mountains. A more interesting question is whether radios 'wear out'. It seems to be assumed that they don't. However, in WW2 in Burma Brits found that after about 6 months service radios needed complete rebuild with lots of new parts, they'd tried workshop re-calibrating them but that was only good for a couple of days. Bowman started specification in 1987, but they've had re-starts because of the pace of change of technology. Being software intensive radios there's also inevitable snags to be ironed out (life was easy when it was all hardware). IOC was met as per the project plans.
 
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shek    RE:Bad Radios   6/23/2005 7:05:37 AM
The US Army is equipped with the ASIP and MBITR as the primary tactical radios; both work very well, have good battery life (when the MBITR is powered by the BA-5590 or BB-2590), and are lightweight for their capabilities. The MBITR is simply amazing, packing the more capabilities than the primary tactical radio of 20 radios in a package 10 times smaller and lighter.
 
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Yimmy    RE:Bad Radios   6/23/2005 8:24:10 AM
Clansman systems today still cost the army around £18,000 a pop. As only one company makes them now, and the army signed a long term support contract with them, they can charge what they want.
 
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neutralizer    RE:Bad Radios   6/24/2005 8:45:39 AM
Given the size of the original orders to equip the Cold War army I doubt if there's any need to buy more radios, or has been for a long time. At most a few bits and pieces. Actually Clansman was produced by several different companies, eg HF manpack by Plessey, VHF manpacks by Racal and vehicle VHF by Marconi (GEC plc). Then there were several suppliers providing various ancillaries, antennas, etc. Another innovation was trained soldier (ie non-technician) repair of ancillaries. About the only thing wrong in the original planning was the failure to provide sufficient mains power units for re-charging batteries in barracks. As I said, 25 years ago when they were first issued they were top of the class.
 
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TrustButVerify    RE:Bad Radios   8/1/2005 2:31:14 PM
I'd like to hear a little more about what qualifies as a "bad" radio. As with any moderately complicated piece of kit, radios which are new in service tend to have a much higher rate of failure until the kinks are ironed out. The radios I've worked with in US service tended to be of three groups- old and reliable (the PRC-113 and its bretheren for instance), new and crap (the PRC-117F) or new and updated from the previous crap version (PSC-5D perhaps). The poster who mentions the MBITR mentions one of the very latter; it's an amazing piece of equipment compared to, well, nearly anything out there. Imagine! Lo-VHF all the way to UHF, and it does SATCOM! It's barely bigger than a pack of smokes! Rah, rah, MBITR and all that. Anyway, I think radios also suffer from the fact that there might be a much greater disparity between lab conditions and field conditions. That's just an undereducated guess though.
 
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shek    RE:Bad Radios - TrustButVerify   8/1/2005 2:41:50 PM
TBV, Like the screen name. I'm curious what the problems are that you've had with the ASIP? Other than the LCD screen cracking (which is easily fixed with a MWO) and some issues with handling power surges (not the fault of the radio, but rather the vehicle), I never had issues with reliability.
 
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TrustButVerify    RE:Bad Radios - TrustButVerify   8/3/2005 7:21:56 AM
Well- I didn't mention the ASIP due to lack of knowledge, but complaints about the PRC-117F are from a coworker who saw one fail seriously during a conference demo, an Air Force ETAC (enlisted TACP member) who said his unit had serious reliability problems, as well as some observations of my own made in the field. (Thanks, Shek. I picked it out of the air and recall that it was an old Russian saying which Reagan used often at one of the bigger arms summits)
 
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shek    RE:Bad Radios - TrustButVerify   8/3/2005 7:57:12 AM
Sorry, I was thinking PRC-119F, which is the ASIP. I think I recall the PRC-117 being finnicky, but we were never able to get our requests for them in Iraq, so I never got to experience the radio first hand.
 
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stbretnco    RE:Bad Radios - TrustButVerify   12/19/2005 12:09:53 AM
One of my main complaints in almost 20 years of dealing with communications equip in the army is the fact that the manufacturers make it too damned complicated to use in real life. The ASIP seems to have cured most of those problems with the SINCGARs family (anyone want to go back to the original now?), but I'm still waiting for a user friendly version of MSE.
 
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TrustButVerify       2/26/2008 1:57:11 PM
Now that I've had a few years of on-and-off experience with the PRC-117F, I can say that user friendliness is my biggest complaint. (The reliability seems to have improved, at least.) The '117 is user friendly once it's programmed up, but it's a flipping nightmare to reprogram without a laptop and hookups. Loading up a DAMA net via the keypad takes forever- versus the PSC-5C & D, which are a comparative breeze to program but are nowhere near as idiot-proof. In the end a truly tactical radio has to put the grunt first, so I'm okay with the philosophy behind the -117 and -148, I just prefer to keep them at arm's length. It's sort of a Mac vs. Windows thing; the Mac/117F are easier to use but if you want to fiddle with the settings you'd better some free time.
 
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