
The US Army’s costly quest for the perfect radio - rbanffy
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/03/the-armys-costly-quest-for-the-perfect-radio-continues/
======
ryanmarsh
I would like everyone to take a close look at Lt. Dudley in the foreground
(first big picture middle of the article).

Can you imagine moving long distances or fighting for your life on uneven
terrain with all of that stuff dangling off of you and weighing you down? Also
notice that the soldiers behind him have full cargo pockets on their pants.

It's interesting to notice the interplay of how new technology enables the
soldier to carry more gadgets and tools, but simultaneously makes the old
gadgets lighter.

A typical soldier has more in his first aid pouch (one of those dangling tan
things with a zipper) than the platoon medic did in WWII. His rifle is
lighter, but it also has an advanced optic and a laser visible through his
NVG's. He's carrying a vest with a "bullet proof" plate (very heavy) but under
it is a shirt made of light durable technical fabric that wicks moisture away
from his skin.

I'm convinced there will never be a day when the infantryman isn't carrying
too much weight. There is a limit to how much weight a fit infantryman can
carry and still be able to fight and they will always have us carrying stuff
up to that limit.

~~~
PKop
As a SAW gunner in Afghanistan on my last deployment, my combat load minus
body weight was > 90lbs.

This was for double digit (at least) hours long missions many times per week
in mountains around +/-10K ft. Brutal.. lol

The accumulated weight of every little required item needed on missions.. a
perpetual source of annoyance.

~~~
solotronics
If you don't mind me asking have you experienced any discrimination in tech
because of your background or politics? I have friends that served and one of
them moved to Dallas from S.V. because the politics there were hostile to
vets. Thank you!

~~~
chrisseaton
I've encountered some hostility when I've said I've been in the Army (I don't
volunteer the information out of the blue - people ask me what I did before I
did my PhD so I tell them).

As the other person said, some people I've met at conferences have ended the
conversation with me or told me they think it's immoral.

One person at a major Ruby conference casually literally asked me if I enjoyed
killing babies.

Many people have the craziest ideas of what the military and war is like that
have no connection whatsoever to reality. It's scary that civil society
understands so little of the military now that it's so small and professional.

~~~
watersb
> Many people have the craziest ideas of what the military and war is like
> that have no connection whatsoever to reality. It's scary that civil society
> understands so little of the military now that it's so small and
> professional.

I totally believe this, and it makes me very angry.

Volunteer for service, suspend your civil rights, vow to defend the
Constitution, develop the technical skills, physical ability, and mental
toughness to serve in combat, and lay it all on the line for fellow soldiers
-- and return to a universe of people who cannot identify Khandahar on a map,
and think they are morally superior... well, I would have issues.

(FWIW I have never served in the military, I don't like the chain of top-level
decisions that led to a decade of active military deployment.)

~~~
Consultant32452
The thing that bugs me is that there's no middle. People appear to either be
the type of asshole OP mentioned or they idolize soldiers in an equally
terrifying way. I view the military as a job. It's not a job I would want, but
there's tons of jobs I don't want. In peace time it's pretty effective at
helping people move up the economic ladder. In war time it provides trained
killers to take out the bad guys. I don't say that flippantly, that's an
important and necessary part of maintaining our civilization. Any beef I might
have about things the military might be doing at any given time is better
directed at political leadership than the boots on the ground.

~~~
ryanmarsh
There’s some moral hazard in treating self-sacrifice-and-killing as merely a
job. Idealizing what warriors do on your behalf (imagine it was actually to
defend your people not the interests of an empire) is an important way that
humans deal with the act of killing. I don’t think you want cold blooded
killers who do it for a meager paycheck, as opposed to the glory and heroism
of defending others.

~~~
Consultant32452
I would rather cold blooded killers who do it for the paycheck than to the
cheers of the coliseum.

~~~
ryanmarsh
No, you do not want to reintegrate a half million cold blooded sociopathic
murderers with no regard for human life back into society. No no no. You don’t
know what you’re saying.

It is much better for all of us that the ones who we have kill be convinced
they’re merely doing it to protect the rest of us. You can mend those hearts.
You can’t mend the cold blooded contract killers.

~~~
Consultant32452
We can't even reintegrate the ones supposedly doing it to protect us. If we,
the general population, stopped participating in this delusion that they're
protecting us, we'd likely send them out to do less killing in the first
place.

Killing for money doesn't require you to be a psychopath, as is evidenced by
the countless paid killers in the military and swat teams today.

~~~
ryanmarsh
Interview those paid killers and find out why they do it. If my personal
experience as a warrior doesn’t convince you maybe hearing it directly from
them will.

~~~
Consultant32452
If you're suggesting fewer people would sign up to be paid killers if we
didn't lavish them with hero worship, then I'm okay with that. In fact, I'll
go so far as to state that as an intended consequence. The other, larger
component, is that the false dichotomy between hero worship and villainization
robs the general public of the ability to rationally consider what our
military is doing.

------
gesman
“Army was excluding cheaper and more effective options based on other
technologies.” - is a key sentence indicating there are middlemen who is being
fed here.

~~~
rgbrenner
Did you read the protest?
[https://www.gao.gov/assets/690/689544.pdf](https://www.gao.gov/assets/690/689544.pdf)

The army asked for a radio that could transmit a signal itself. This company
offered to build a radio that sends the signal (using radio over ip) to a
truck or other radio system that would then transmit the signal. Their radio
would not work if there was not another radio locally available to tether it
with.

That's not even the same product. Cheaper sure... more effective? I don't know
where they got that from. With their system, if you're not in range of the
truck, or terrain interferes with the signal to the truck, or the truck gets
damaged, you lose all communication.

~~~
Cookiesaurusbex
How far do you think a hand held battery powered radio can transmit it's
signal? Unless you are talking about a HF radio using skywave propagation (to
include some maths & carefully positioning an antenna that might be several
meters long) it won't be very far, especially in a city or rough terrain. The
benefit of having a vehicle mounted radio relay system means that it runs on
vehicle power (or a generator) and can carry a lot more antennas. Radio
retransmission teams who do exactly this with vehicles fitted for this exact
purpose are prevalent in the military, most units will have several of these
teams/trucks permanently assigned, and if not, their local signal unit can
lend them.

I'm not arguing with the rest of your post, I'm sure there is way more fraud,
waste and abuse then we can imagine going on. But the laws of physics still
apply and if you want transmit a signal far, you need a power source bigger
than what people can carry. Even a vehicle mounted and powered radio wouldn't
be able to transmit 10-20 miles unless you were sitting on top of a hill in
otherwise perfect conditions.

~~~
gamblor956
I have a handheld walkie-talkie radio from REI that can transmit 10-20 miles
from the top of a hill in not-perfect conditions (and about 1-2 miles in
forested terrain), so I think your range estimates are off by an order of
magnitude for high-powered transmissions.

~~~
vvanders
Nah, he's pretty on the mark. I'm lucky to make it into the repeater ~15mi
down the road from me(50W on both side) because it's not at the top of a
mountain. Unless you're talking HF(which he covers) you're basically still
constrained by line-of-sight.

More power just pushes you through small objects(trees, buildings, etc)
depending on wavelength.

------
agumonkey
I sense the same can be said about many medical devices.

Firemen came to my house they had a portable digital EKG with 2G data line to
push the graph to a doctor remotely. The thing couldn't get cell reception,
probably a weak modem/antenna. One of the guy hinted at 5000$ unit cost. In
terms of screen + processing + com electronics, it's about 50$. Some MD told
me there needs to be some precise analog probes and ADC but I doubt it's in
the 1000$ range.

Then there are standard validation costs, which are necessary.

The rest comes from premiums due to the medical market IMO. The companies know
very well they can get away with such prices so they do, even though it could
be pushed down without altering quality or even decent profit for them.

~~~
FireBeyond
> Firemen came to my house they had a portable digital EKG with 2G data line
> to push the graph to a doctor remotely. The thing couldn't get cell
> reception, probably a weak modem/antenna. One of the guy hinted at 5000$
> unit cost.

If only. As someone in Fire/EMS, a moderately equipped LifePak 12/15?

$14,000 to $40,000 depending on configuration -
[https://www.ogs.ny.gov/purchase/spg/pdfdocs/1260522835PL_Phy...](https://www.ogs.ny.gov/purchase/spg/pdfdocs/1260522835PL_PhysioControl.pdf)

But to also be fair, there's a fair amount going on beyond all that.
Defibrillator, including pacing, non invasive measurement of carbon monoxide,
certain drugs and chemicals, integrated printer, weather sealed (gotta be able
to operate outside in the rain), ruggedized for drops.

But still, $40K... oi.

~~~
agumonkey
Yeah that kind of device, made by Phillips in my case. I don't think it had
advanced functions like defib.. it felt barely big enough to be an EKG already
but Im the noob. That said 14K is ludicrous.

The fact the mainstream market is able to sell 200€ smartphone with somehow
advanced features is also ludicrous in that context. I guess it's just economy
of scale power. But I'm convinced we could make the medical market a bit
cheaper. It has serious implications on the whole structure. People will be
treated differently based on cost. And in my case, that lack of 2G could have
been lethal.

I went to a few fablab, these guys are replicating some mundane lab equipment
for 1/100 or 1/1000 (can't recall) of the market price. I really liked that
mindset.

~~~
rayiner
The thing that makes smartphones so damn cheap is you can sell a couple of
hundred million of them every year. It’s the same reason consumer grade GPUs
and CPUs completely wiped out SGI, Sun, etc. Those companies weren’t
incompetent, it’s just the economies of scale are insane.

------
ryandrake
As someone who has been in the private sector his whole life, and not had much
experience with government/military work, it’s always fascinated me how often
these projects end up way over budget, way WAY late, and fail to meet every
requirement. I’ve always had this morbid curiosity to see first hand how
messed up everything has to be at these places in order to fail so badly and
so consistently. I’d love to understand how companies can win contract after
contract and yet be so bad at delivering. Reading these articles feels like
watching car accidents.

~~~
JonnyNova
I've heard about stories about government agencies and such second hand from
family members. To me, it sounds like it breaks down to this because the
projects that they are running are not subject to risk of failure. There isn't
a small company that is going to absolutely die if a deliverable doesn't meet
the market's demands at a certain point in time. Just don't stop throwing
money and resources at the project until it is done no matter what.

~~~
IAmEveryone
Government projects are about as efficient as similarly-sized projects in the
private sector. You just never hear about private company’s failures because
the public has less of a stake in it. Journalists focus on people wasting
_your_ money.

The laws requiring publication of bidding documents and damning reports on
cost overruns are also mostly specific to public projects. Who knows how much
money Apple invested in self-driving technology? Try sending a Freedom of
Information Act request to Uber inquiring on their self-driving car efforts.

------
drewpc
Among the quest for the "perfect radio" and making things
smaller/lighter/better is the concept of Netted Iridium. Units around the
world are often using Netted Iridium as an alternative to traditional radios:

[https://inah.pac.disa.mil/dtcs.shtml](https://inah.pac.disa.mil/dtcs.shtml)

While Iridium may have fallen out of favor in the commercial sector, it is an
integral component within the US military.

[https://www.airspacemag.com/space/the-rise-and-fall-and-
rise...](https://www.airspacemag.com/space/the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-of-
iridium-5615034/)

~~~
nradov
The Iridium constellation would probably be one of the first casualties in any
major future conflict. They're in LEO so fairly vulnerable.

~~~
drewpc
You're absolutely correct (more specifically when it comes to near-peer
adversaries). Depending on the threats that we're facing, LEO satellites can
be a huge asset even though they're vulnerable.

------
aeturnum
Military spec radios are an interesting corner of technology. They are one of
the things North Korea has exported for money [0]. I expect that radio
communications will actually get more important as time goes on, as the
potential for intelligent interference and mind games gets better.

[0] article: [https://www.voanews.com/a/us-sanctions-eritrea-navy-over-
nor...](https://www.voanews.com/a/us-sanctions-eritrea-navy-over-north-korea-
links/3802651.html) There is also an arms control wonk podcast that details
it, but I can't remember which episode it is.

------
gaius
The UK is no better with Bowman (better off with map and Nokia) and the latest
farce around replacing Airwave/TETRA with civilian 4G.

~~~
secfirstmd
Hahahaha Bowman...my god do British soldiers get lumped with totally shit,
overly expensive equipment - often made by a British government jobs scheme
(sorry I mean defence contractor). The amount of times I've politely smiled
when getting a demo of kit like the Bowman, SA80, various rubbish body armour
and webbing designs, Snatch Landrovers, etc etc

This is a very good book on the topic:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions,_Donkeys_and_Dinosaurs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions,_Donkeys_and_Dinosaurs)

~~~
philjohn
I'll have you know the SA80 is now pretty decent, granted, it's been
redesigned for us by the Germans though ...

A lot of the issue, especially with things like the Snatch, is that they were
designed to get around quickly, hence minimal armour, but in modern theatre of
war against insurgents planting IED's it breaks down totally.

Same issue with the Eurofighter Typhoon - great A2A, but awful for what's
needed now, with is A2G.

~~~
secfirstmd
IMHO its rubbish from the start. The SA80 was LA's attempt to build a Steyr
Aug and completely failed.

------
fapjacks
Well... It is, after all: Shoot, move, _communicate_.

------
jonathanstrange
I wonder how susceptible these things are to electronic warfware. Complex
software-based technology like that seems like a great idea but also like a
huge risk. In the civilian sector there is nothing that can't be hacked, I
wonder what makes them so confident that they can prevent that in military
applications. Otherwise it might just take one good virus to take a whole
communication network down.

~~~
jabl
Then again, with a traditional analogue AM or FM radio it's trivial to
triangulate the position (and possibly call in an artillery strike on said
coordinates or whatever), as well as jamming it with a narrow-band jammer.

And without some hw/sw assisted crypto, communication becomes a lot slower. Or
then you accept that the enemy can and will overhear what you say.

So for better or worse, complex radios based on digital technology is
necessary for modern military use.

~~~
ufo
How does a more sophisticated radio avoid having its position triangulated?

~~~
rasz
low power, spread spectrum, this of course severely limits the range. Example
[http://www.milspec.ca/radspec/prc-343.html](http://www.milspec.ca/radspec/prc-343.html)

------
pasabagi
What do you put in a backpack size radio? I'm struggling to imagine what could
require that much space. A car battery?

~~~
JulianMorrison
I expect it's the combination of ruggedized maintainable components,
maintenance spares and kit, and a lot of rechargeable cells.

~~~
jabl
.. and if this thing is done with SDR technology (which apparently was the
original aim of the program, don't know if they have backtracked since),
presumably the DSP's and FPGA's are going to be larger and significantly more
power hungry than bespoke ASIC's.

~~~
makomk
I believe CORBA may have been involved somewhere too, of all things...

~~~
rayiner
If by "somewhere" you mean "everywhere." JTRS was fun. (Although, CORBA wasn't
_that bad_.)

~~~
aidenn0
It was a memory hog though, particularly when you have 2 or 3 separate CORBA
servers running.

------
ProudNounDUzber
Looks like that radio couldn't have been older than 40 years.

