PDA

View Full Version : Communication is key in combat zone



thedrifter
12-07-06, 06:47 AM
Communication is key in combat zone
DME Corp.'s Orlando unit has developed a system to help keep the U.S. military's radios working in Iraq.

Rachel Hatzipanagos | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted December 7, 2006

Bob Dehne spent his summer at an air base west of Baghdad, showing U.S. Marines a new way to test their military radios before heading out on patrol.

"They were getting a backlog of radios" waiting to be checked, because the screening equipment was old and slow, said Dehne, director of business development and military liaison for DME Corp.'s Orlando operation. "They have test equipment that's been out there for 20 years."

Dehne was showing the Marines how to use a new DME system known as the Advanced Tactical Agile Communications Test Set, or ATACTS. It is a "software-defined" system, which means that, unlike older testers, it can be quickly adapted to handle radio upgrades, such as an expanded number of frequencies, without having to change the test machine's hardware.

The DME system is in demand because delays in developing next-generation radios for battlefield communications have left U.S. soldiers with old technology in the harsh, demanding conditions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Pentagon is still refining its $37 billion program to transform the military's radio communications. Work on the project, known as the Joint Tactical Radio System, or JTRS, began in 1997 and was originally expected to cost $15 billion. JTRS was supposed to consolidate the military's various radio systems and communications infrastructure so that military personnel on the ground and in the air could communicate seamlessly on the same frequencies, reducing the chances of so-called friendly fire and other deadly miscues.

JTRS was hampered from the start by cost and schedule overruns as well as shortfalls in its performance, according to a September report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm.

"I wouldn't say that the program was flawed. It was too ambitious and tried to do too much with technology and development in too short of a time," said John Oppenheim, the GAO's assistant director for acquisition and sourcing management, and one of those who wrote the September report.

In the meantime, the military has spent $11 billion on its "legacy" radios -- meaning older, existing models-- and will continue to have to do so, according to the GAO report.

"Most of the problem is just buying new older radios, because there is a need for better radios in the field," Oppenheim said.

That's where companies like DME and people like Dehne come in.

When Dehne was in Iraq, the Marines at his base were getting about 200 radios a day to test. DME's ATACTS system reduced the amount of time needed to test a unit from three hours to an hour and a half, he said.

As a result of his trip, he added, the Marine Corps placed a sole-source, $6.5 million contract with DME for 68 test systems that began shipping last month.

Miscommunications can be deadly in a war zone. According to U.S. Army data from earlier this year, more than a dozen soldiers have died from friendly fire in Iraq and Afghanistan during the past four years.

"Radios can save lives, just like bullets can," said Dehne, who has worked at DME for 10 years.

The 57-year-old Oviedo resident trained for about four months before heading to Iraq. The training, with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, involved both classroom and practical exercises.

He and the Marines were sent to Al Taqaddum Air Base, where he slept in a tent on a cot. During his entire stay in Iraq, from July 12 to Aug. 23, Dehne said, he was always accompanied by two armed Marines.

Near the end of his stay, Dehne was riding in a Humvee with some Marines when a mortar round was fired over their heads. It landed about a half-mile away.

"There were fatalities. There was smoke immediately," he recalled. "I got pulled over to a bunker, and we sat there for six hours in 130-degree temperatures with our whole equipment on. . . . I was in there with about 130 Marines. They were doing roll call to make sure everyone was accounted for."

The Marines Dehne was helping in Iraq were testing older Harris Corp. radios. Melbourne-based Harris still has legacy radios in Iraq, though some of its new, JTRS-compatible models are also beginning to show up there.

Harris, whose RF Communications Division is in Rochester, N.Y., began getting orders for its first family of JTRS radios last year. The Falcon III models, while built to work with older systems, are also easily upgraded to work with JTRS technology, said Kevin Kane, the division's director of government business development.

The company received a $169 million contract from the Army in July for the Falcon III radios. They are among the first wave of radios that can be easily upgraded to JTRS and provide longer-range communications.

"Certainly knowing where you are and your buddies are would hopefully cut down instances of fratricide," Kane said. The Army at one time was planning to spend more than $100 million developing what it called a Battlefield Combat Identification System, which would have used radio emitters to help troops identify each other. But that program, started in the 1990s, was canceled in 2001 because of rising costs and other factors.

Hoping to keep JTRS on track, the Pentagon created a special office in early 2005 to develop a strategy for deploying the system and ensuring it stays on budget. The office, based in San Diego, has started by taking a more measured approach to the program, rather than attempting to convert everything all at once.

JTRS, just one part of a broader Pentagon initiative known as Future Combat Systems, is now projected to be in widespread use by about 2011.

"JTRS won't be out for a couple of years, so they still have to test these," Dehne said of the older radios now in use in Iraq.

Dehne, who is spending some time this week in the DME booth at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation & Education Conference in Orlando, was also back at Camp Pendleton this week, showing the Marines an improved version of ATACTS. He expects to return with them to Iraq early next year.

Advanced Tactical Agile Communications Test Set.

System handles military radio upgrades without having to change the test machine's hardware.

DME has $6.5 million contract to provide 68 test systems to Marine Corps.

Ellie