Air Force TACP's test new comms tech for disaster response

[drdispatch]

The Texas National Guard is trying out a new mode of communication using goTenna and a cellphone app. It looks very interesting, and appears to be quite robust/resilient. I can see this eventually being used all over.

Air Force TACPs Test Out New Comms Technology for Disaster Response

Texas Air National Guard TACPs tested goTenna mesh networking tech that could help Airmen and civilian first responders save lives.

www.airandspaceforces.com

 

[MUTNAV]

Great minds think alike...

Military trying to cut out middlemen in communications

Seems like improvements are being made. https://www.airandspaceforces.com/texas-air-national-guard-tacp-gotenna/ Sounds like a great deal for much lower costs than the regular radio systems. Thanks Joel

forums.radioreference.com

 

[WB5UOM]

GoTenna Review

The GoTenna is a radio-based off-the-grid communication tool that lets you reliably send texts and share location data with other users from your smart device, making it a good alternative to pricey satellite phones.

www.pcmag.com

 

[PACNWDude]

Always interesting to see what is being used from the commercial sector with military organizations. Full disclosure, I spent half my military career in ASOS units as well, active and guard. This is also where the Joint Inter-Site Communications Capability (JISCC) was developed, to allow for interoperability between Army/Air Guard units and local first response elements.

Some units also had cell phone systems in that package, which often disturbed local cellular service when placed and used incorrectly (I also worked for AT&T at one point and made sure too coordinate the ICE-S cell phone package wen my unit brought one into service).

GoTenna units are great little devices, and that mesh network capability can be very useful when cell phone signal is not available. Many of these are used for disaster response work in the private sector as well.

 

[MUTNAV]

Always interesting to see what is being used from the commercial sector with military organizations. Full disclosure, I spent half my military career in ASOS units as well, active and guard. This is also where the Joint Inter-Site Communications Capability (JISCC) was developed, to allow for interoperability between Army/Air Guard units and local first response elements.

Some units also had cell phone systems in that package, which often disturbed local cellular service when placed and used incorrectly (I also worked for AT&T at one point and made sure too coordinate the ICE-S cell phone package wen my unit brought one into service).

GoTenna units are great little devices, and that mesh network capability can be very useful when cell phone signal is not available. Many of these are used for disaster response work in the private sector as well.

The mesh is supposed to be good for underground operations also, the air force seems to be getting more interested in such things.

thanks
Joel

 

[surfacemount]

Always interesting to see what is being used from the commercial sector with military organizations. Full disclosure, I spent half my military career in ASOS units as well, active and guard. This is also where the Joint Inter-Site Communications Capability (JISCC) was developed, to allow for interoperability between Army/Air Guard units and local first response elements.

Some units also had cell phone systems in that package, which often disturbed local cellular service when placed and used incorrectly (I also worked for AT&T at one point and made sure too coordinate the ICE-S cell phone package wen my unit brought one into service).

GoTenna units are great little devices, and that mesh network capability can be very useful when cell phone signal is not available. Many of these are used for disaster response work in the private sector as well.

I'd like to hear some more about the ICE-S subsystem. googling it did not bring me any joy lol

Far as the original article, guess this is a way to paint some of their product green and jack up the price in return for an NSN and eventually forget their target market, huh? Or get bought out by Persistent Systems lol

 

[Hooligan]

Military et. al. have been playing with the GoTenna devices for several years. Out of the box, they're set-up on VHF MURS channels but can be programmed for other freqs/spectrum.

 

[PACNWDude]

I'd like to hear some more about the ICE-S subsystem. googling it did not bring me any joy lol

Far as the original article, guess this is a way to paint some of their product green and jack up the price in return for an NSN and eventually forget their target market, huh? Or get bought out by Persistent Systems lol

Look up JISCC and ICE-S together, you will find a few links, but not all units received this cellular on wheels kit.

 

[littona]

Always interesting to see what is being used from the commercial sector with military organizations. Full disclosure, I spent half my military career in ASOS units as well, active and guard. This is also where the Joint Inter-Site Communications Capability (JISCC) was developed, to allow for interoperability between Army/Air Guard units and local first response elements.

Some units also had cell phone systems in that package, which often disturbed local cellular service when placed and used incorrectly (I also worked for AT&T at one point and made sure too coordinate the ICE-S cell phone package wen my unit brought one into service).

GoTenna units are great little devices, and that mesh network capability can be very useful when cell phone signal is not available. Many of these are used for disaster response work in the private sector as well.

I was part of a JISCC team when I was in the ANG. It really took a team of "smart people" to make this work. The version we had was very rough and it took a lot of tinkering to get it working initially. Follow-on missions required a lot of cheat sheets. We did one real world deployment of it to a town that was half leveled by a tornado. We felt like an ARES team - we weren't needed.

 

[surfacemount]

Look up JISCC and ICE-S together, you will find a few links, but not all units received this cellular on wheels kit.

I did. Found the name of the manufacturer, but that's about it. Considering the size of the JISCC, if the ICES was a similar size, that would have been... interesting. Also, how the system managed to fill in without killing surrounding towers, or if it was an AF-only cell system, etc etc etc. Thanks anyway.

I was part of a JISCC team when I was in the ANG. It really took a team of "smart people" to make this work. The version we had was very rough and it took a lot of tinkering to get it working initially. Follow-on missions required a lot of cheat sheets. We did one real world deployment of it to a town that was half leveled by a tornado. We felt like an ARES team - we weren't needed.

I know a guy that did that stuff, too. He sounds like you. Deployed to one incident where it actually worked, and was needed, too. Rest of the time, guess it was good practice. I'll have to ask if he ever had to manually aim the dish, I think it pointed ok once the case was anchored to the correct north or something.

 

[PACNWDude]

I did. Found the name of the manufacturer, but that's about it. Considering the size of the JISCC, if the ICES was a similar size, that would have been... interesting. Also, how the system managed to fill in without killing surrounding towers, or if it was an AF-only cell system, etc etc etc. Thanks anyway.


I know a guy that did that stuff, too. He sounds like you. Deployed to one incident where it actually worked, and was needed, too. Rest of the time, guess it was good practice. I'll have to ask if he ever had to manually aim the dish, I think it pointed ok once the case was anchored to the correct north or something.

Well, from personal experience with both Nana/Rivada Pacific and SyTech JISCC packages (my state had five packages), it was a package that required a team of "experts" over the thought that non communications units could field a package this comprehensive.

The ICE-S was later removed from fielded packages, as it did indeed interfere with cell phone service in many areas it was used, as no site surveys, or preliminary work to mitigate interference was conducted in many use cases.

When I used JISCC/ICE-S I was also working for a private corporation that responded to hurricanes, oil spills and other disaster's providing emergency communication's support. Then there was an incident in Portland, OR, where we were co-located with a JISCC system that was owned/operated by the Oregon Air National Guard. They had more vehicles, higher end gear, but my civilian crew was providing both landline/cell phone service, Internet access and 9-1-1 tied to a Tellular fixed wireless box and PBX, but for a lot less money in hardware and service.

Items like the GoTenna and other consumer grade items that could be used for emergency response efforts were sought out at events such as the International Wireless Communications Expo (IWCE), and trade shows for APCO and others. Now, a lot can be had for less money and better reliability than a decade or two ago.

 

[PACNWDude]

I did. Found the name of the manufacturer, but that's about it. Considering the size of the JISCC, if the ICES was a similar size, that would have been... interesting. Also, how the system managed to fill in without killing surrounding towers, or if it was an AF-only cell system, etc etc etc. Thanks anyway.


I know a guy that did that stuff, too. He sounds like you. Deployed to one incident where it actually worked, and was needed, too. Rest of the time, guess it was good practice. I'll have to ask if he ever had to manually aim the dish, I think it pointed ok once the case was anchored to the correct north or something.

I had one JISCC antenna that had some bad teeth on its gear drive, for autotrack. You have to kick the Hardigg box to get the gears past that part to properly track sometimes. I think that was an AVL dish, but some had General Dynamics dishes too. Civilian wise, the expensive military grade dishes were just as flawed as the Winegard commercial ones. None of them do well with pine needles, leaves, birds nests, and general exposure to the elements.

 

[surfacemount]

So, JISCC was a civil package that utilized non-mil birds? I was somehow under the impression it worked with AEHF. That actually makes a great deal more sense.
ICE-S sounds more like an actual cell base station, and less an extender that would have ridden back on satellite, that's kind of what I envisioned. Thank you for fleshing it out more for me!

 

[PACNWDude]

So, JISCC was a civil package that utilized non-mil birds? I was somehow under the impression it worked with AEHF. That actually makes a great deal more sense.
ICE-S sounds more like an actual cell base station, and less an extender that would have ridden back on satellite, that's kind of what I envisioned. Thank you for fleshing it out more for me!

Yes, on both accounts. My last JISCC satcom shot was to SatMex6, which has a couple of other satellites very close by, and the way you know you are on the right bird, is the Cisco iDirect modem comes into the network for that specific configuration) and greens up.

ICE-S was a cell phone site, but adding a cell phone site where there is already coverage, or without mitigation of other vendors carrier equipment (the one I used was AT&T based), meant that you could impact existing fixed cell phone sites.

JISCC in concept is a great idea, as long as you have a dedicated team of knowledgeable people to implement its use, and tools and spare pats to fix things when they break. The packages did not come with tools or spare parts, and military units eventually had to add all of that in. That being said SyTech built reliable and rugged kits, Nana/Rivada Pacific did a poor job and each package from that vendor had to be torn down and rebuilt better. Poor grounds, crimps on lugs and splices, lack of attention to detail so cables would run against cases and fail. We even had a generator fan shroud fly apart and injure a person.

Hardware like GoTenna's and Wilson cell phone "extenders" were sometimes added, some units spent a lot of money on amateur radio equipment to be added to the package for emergency communications use. Others kept older terminals up and running to have the lower terminal ID number. I "killed off" and parted out one (of five in use statewide) terminal only to be told after retirement, that the state adjutant general had it rebuilt as it now has the lowest still in use terminal ID number on the network (bragging rights for having one of the first terminals still in use - ego).