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Monitoring The Army (& Air Force, Navy etc) in Australia You can monitor routine transport, army tactical communications during day-to-day training and exercises, all with you trusty radio scanner! Army tactical and field communications are between 30 and 50MHz, in Narrow FM mode. The communications are highly disciplined and may be either verbally or technically encyrpted. Even in peace time a limited degree of secrecy is maintained initially by the use of alphanumeric callsign groups and extremely careful construction of text to conceal the meaning of messages to casual eavesdroppers. In times of conflict, all-singing, all-dancing frequency hopping radios will be utilised employing highly encyrpted digital signals. Domestically, communications security is relaxed slightly. The military is not concerned with us, the radio scanner nut, but in this country-as with almost any country in the world-there would be a network of foreign intelligence agents whom like to listen in to our military to assist them in gathering information about our armed services. Typical battlefield comms equipment these days tunes to many thousands of low band frequencies and accommodates modular outboard or inboard keyboards for databursts. Large amounts of intelligence data is fired off in bursts lasting only milliseconds. These messages can be stored until the appropriate moment then then transmitted in a very short, quick databurst, making RF (Radiofrequency) detection extremely difficult. The radios can also frequency hop up to 100 channels per second. Try scanning that! SINGCARS (Single Channel Ground & Airborne Radio Sub-System) radios replaced earlier AN/VRC-12 sets. The new sets, known as AN/VRC-46 are modular, lightweight, portable and have bought army command into the 21st century. They are relatively low-cost, low maintenance as a result of being 'mil-spec' radios with a SecureNet option. Infantry, cavalry, control-and-command, administration, and army aviation units can be monitored on 30.0000-30.5000, 32.0000-32.9900, 34.0000-34.3990, 36.0000-36.9900, 38.2000-38.9900, 40.0000-41.9900 and 46.6000-46.9000MHz. There's also army comms between 66-88.000MHz, 136-139.9750MHz, the 'nowhere' VHF band. From 400-470.0000MHz there's a small amount of military comms, as with 470-512.0000MHz. Many channels above 1GHz are also available to the military, including the satellite bands. Military aviation can be found on any of the previous bands, plus HF and the own allocation of 225-399.9750MHz in AM, FM and WFM modes, as well as data modes on satellite frequencies. Satellite Equipment used by military is URC101/110 single channel tactical satellite transmitters (TacSat) which can include SecureFax or SecureNet options. The accompanying fax unit is the AN/GXC-7 fax unit If you're wondering, yes the Army won't be happy with the publication of their callsigns, but these callsigns are part of the old British Commonwealth and they are not even restricted information, let alone classified. The last time these callsigns were published, by Bob Lopaka in CB Action he received some strange phone calls from Canberra, including one from a high-ranking military official asking what he was doing handing out callsigns such as "Shelldrake" etc. All the military information gathered is publicly available. In the Army, any unit that has communications need will have a Signal Corps, or part of a Signal Corp, a Signal Squadron as part of it's unit. Their role is to provide every communications need to the company they have been assigned. For example the Commando and SAS regiments where originally combined with 301 Signal Corps. 301 Sigs was disbanded in 1961, the role being taken by 126 Signal Squadron. In 2002, (my guess for the upcoming "War On Terror") the 301 Signal Corps was raised again. |
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Copyright © 2003, 2004 Australian Scanning Encyclopedia, VicNews
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