Military Tanks on SATCOM

[PeterMacQuarrie]

Do military tanks use SATCOM? How would I know if it is a tank and not something else? Are there radio codes/names for tanks using satellites?
Thanks!
Peter MacQuarrie.

 

[prcguy]

Do military tanks use SATCOM? How would I know if it is a tank and not something else? Are there radio codes/names for tanks using satellites?
Thanks!
Peter MacQuarrie.

I have seen UHF satcom antennas on some tanks but I don't think its common. It would be extremally rare or an actual accident if you heard one on UHF satcom as nearly everything is heavily encrypted. Over the years I have heard some testing in the clear, some non critical comms like delivery planes going to Antarctica and one guy who was supposed to be encrypted and was not, talking about things he should not have in the clear. Otherwise 99.9% of anything on UHF satcom is encrypted.

 

[PeterMacQuarrie]

Greetings prcguy,
Thanks for the reply.
Sincerely,
Peter MacQuarrie.

 

[Hooligan]

Do military tanks use SATCOM? How would I know if it is a tank and not something else? Are there radio codes/names for tanks using satellites?
Thanks!
Peter MacQuarrie.

Most US tanks & armored vehicles have GPS receivers, and a more & more have a SATCOM-based digital system called Warfighter Information Network - Tactical/Blue Force Tracker 2 for situational awareness, but tanks & most armored vehicles are operationally & logistically tactical-level systems with their command & control & support relatively close, per doctrine.

There's enough legacy UHF FM analog voice use to make it still worthwhile to search the spectrum (right, Solarix?), but most of the traffic is now on a new Wideband CDMA system in the 300MHz spectrum called MUOS. Google searches on some of the above systems will yield a lot of info.