You guys all know im newish to the handheld radio world so this isnt coming from an expert. However i was in charge of security comms for the 4 days i was there. If i had the info below on a paper to hand out at the time we would be much better off i think. there are lots of grammar errors as i just jotted this down on notepad but the info is there. any questions or improvements you have, feel free to post them here.
>Communications, Random thoughts and lessons learned.
Handheld Radios:
Having a handheld radio on every member of a teams person is essential to the ability
of that team to pass along intel or menuever men in an efficient way. Your most valuable
tool is your handheld radio. Knowing how to operate it and solve problems that arise with
your radio is crucial. If your radio loses the input frequency do you know how to reinput
it? If youre recieving unclear or poor reception do you know how to maximize your radio
to get that transmition through? You need to know these things. An example of solving a
poor reception issue is to face the area the transmition is coming from, keep the antenna
perfectly verticle and hold down your "monitor" button. tests have shown that having the
antenna of your radio at a 45 degree angle can reduce its trnsmitting and recieving power
by a huge margain. Also trying to transmit through your skull or body isnt going to help
the situation. Holding down the "monitor" button cancels out your squelch setting and will
allow you to hear anything being transmitted on that frequency, including staticy words
that your squelch setting may percieve as noise that dosent need to be transmitted. when
the squelch does this you might get some words and have the transmition cutting in and
out. "monitor" simply cancels out the squelch. If its an ongoing problem then adjusting
your squelch to a lower setting might be your best bet. the point here is to know these
things.
Bring a damn radio!!!! We had militia men showing up with thousands upon thousands in gear, some with helmet mounted night vision... but the cheapest walmart walkie talkie known to man. that is certainly better then nothing though. about 65% of the guys came with no handheld radio at all...
Tape those lights up! Knowing how to turn off any backlighting on your radio is important
aswell as taping up any lights you cannot control through program settings. Thats all i
have to say on that.
Dont be afraid to speak up! If you are hearing one person transmitting something and they
are getting no reply, feel free to speak up, even if its clearly not for you. You very
well might be closer to the intended target and even speaking the intended targets name
as you communicate with the origonal transmitter, might get him to speak up. In this case
you are acting as a repeater for the origonal transmitter(this assumes you are NOT using
an actual repeater). even if they cannot hear each other, if you are able to hear both of
them then you can get the intel passed. I saw this a lot at the bundy ranch. if my target
was not responding id simply get no reply from anyone. in some cases from men standing feet
away from my intended target. If you are not in a geopgraphical position to act as a
repeater, at least the transmitter will know his radio is working and theres issues with
range or the status of the intended target. there were a few times where id call out
"2 metro from the North" while at the LPOP. i usually got no reply, so id call it out again
just to be safe. if i still got no reply of acknowledgement then too bad. thats not a good
way to be communicating vital intel.
Having even a handheld human repeater can be very useful. Lets call this person the "operator".
If you have a dual band radio, running your operator frequncy as your "B" frequncy would be
a good idea if you have one in place. this can be a set frequncy that never changes while your
mass comms frequency may change day to day or hour to hour for OPSEC reasons. you could
have your operator on a totally different frequency or you culd run them on the same frequncy
but without a "private setting". For example FRS frequency. If the mass comms frequency is
"channel 3" which is 462.6125 and with a CTCSS setting of 100.0Hz then you can run your
operator frequency as 462.6125 withiut any "private channel setting. this way the operator can
monitor all comms but he will only transmit to those that purposely switch over to the operator
channel. so if you have guy A trying to transmit over to guy B and they are too far apart, but
your operator is in between them or at a better high point, Guy A can Switch over to operator
channel and have the operator call out to guy B and relay the message rather then blow up the
main comms frequency with confusing operator relaying message chatter.
Verbal comms:
Be careful what you say! Expect that any word you say will be twisted and magnified to the worst
extent. Heres an Example of something that likely took place hundreds of times while i was at
the bundy ranch.
Guy1: "Hey i spotted something moving over in the bushes down there, for all i know it might be a
SNIPER."
Guy2: "Hey Guy1 said he might of spotted a sniper in the bushes over there".
Guy3: "Guy1 spotted a sniper not too long ago so be on alert".
As you can see this is the telephone game from HELL. It is driven by the will to have something
exciting happen aswell as unintentional magnification of things the listener perceives to be
important in the message. We went from a rabbit in the bushes to a confirmed sniper in three jumps.
for this very reason i found myself one night, with one foot in my tent heading to bed and not 3
minutes later im laying inthe dirt in the hills waiting for 2 "confirmed" MRAP's to come driving
in. DONT SAY HOT WORDS THAT WILL BE MAGNIFIED. the person youre telling knows that a movement in a bush could be anything.there is no need to speculate verbally. state only the FACTS.
