Lights Out! Gorilla Radio – RTO AAR, by Crusoe

After spending a week in the mud of Tennessee doing all things radio, I have a newfound appreciation for my comm operators while I was on active duty.  In the past when discussing communication problems with them I would ask for the “dummy’ version so I could get the basic idea of what they were talking about and how to support them solving whatever the issue was.  With Scout’s instruction the curtain was finally lifted, and I was able to get a solid base line understanding of radio and antenna theory for practical applications.  I came away from the RTO, RTO Advanced and SIGINT courses with several personal takeaways.

The first being that radios are tools and are just one part of an overall communications plan that includes analog, digital, and visual methods.  I take the stance that future conflict in our country will run back and forth along the spectrum of permissive to non-permissive environments.  Our communications plans must be easily adaptable to operate within this fluid state.  Of equal importance is having a plan on how to communicate with your team when radio communication is not advised but coordination is still required.  The time is now to build that comm plan!

It should be obvious that to be effective you must know your equipment.  A key element to building a signals operating instruction is understanding the capabilities and limitations of your equipment.  The only way to do that is to pull it out of the box and read the instruction manual.  I agree it is not as cool as shooting paper targets on a flat range, but in the end, it will be your technical knowledge of all your equipment that will increase your overall efficiency.  My training standard is-will I be able to use and troubleshoot my equipment in the dark, while it is raining, under a poncho with night vision.  We collectively know that this is when everything decides to not work because Murphy always gets a vote.

My final lesson learned is that you will need some basic equipment to put all of this in action.  Baofeng UV-5R radios are cheap and reasonably capable.  You can easily spin up a buddy or two in a couple minutes on how to use them and they are a solid option for neighborhood/homestead defense.  The next step up is digital mobile radio (DMR) for its baseline 256-bit encryption (I have an Anytone 878 UVii)and ability to send texted messages via data bursts.  This coupled with some basic tradecraft tools will limit your exposure and thus detection.  Digital radios are not cheap, but with the increased costs comes more capability.

I am almost through the training evolution I created for myself in the Fall of this past year.  In deciding on what training I needed I thought about what my personal requirements and knowledge gaps were so I could be a better protector for my family and community as well as a valuable and capable teammate.  In my humble opinion the RTO, RTO Advanced and SIGINT courses are a must for anyone who believes dark times are around the corner and there will be a need to “quietly” operate within a semi contested to contested environment.

As with any course I always walk away with a list of newly purchased gear.

• Tactical style headset
• Dog Bone Handset
• U94 Connector to connect your headset to your Baofeng radio via Kenwood style connector
• VS-17 Signal Panel. You can cut into smaller pieces for the rest of your team.
• Goose Neck Antenna for my handheld
• SMA to BNC Adapter to connect the goose neck antenna to your radio

I also recommend building a radio kit described in this article.