Of serious note:
Recently have read an interview with volunteer (militiaman) who supported pro-Russian separatists on Ukrainian south-east territories known as Donbass. Politics aside, interesting notes on communications. Sorry for my poor transcription (even with gugl help).
– Comms were the problem?
– In our unit comms were very good. Nearly every fighter had radio, barely there was just no-go to the operations without them. 95% of personnel were provided with comms, surely.
– What’s the radios?
– I’m not expert in them. Were good, “Kenvods”. Were bad. TKF, i guess.
– That is, radios were household and had not a secure communication channel?
– Yes.
– Have you a case to come across ukrainian transmissions on-the-air?
– We had not, but we had a branch wich intentionally listened to “ukrops”* dialogues through the open channels. The exactly same radios were on the opposite side, after all.
– As a secure communication channel was not existed, do yourselves used coded words during the conversations, so enemy do not understand the content?
– Before the operation of Debaltsevo we still tried to encrypt, but then battle broke out – dropped attempts. Well, maybe changed the names of settlements and that’s all. People just could be confused, they often even forgot a pass-word, and if to still play on air, then oops …
* Ukrop – hostile definition of Ukrainian. Ukrops – plural form.
A couple of things to note…
- In many areas outside of the US, Baofengs are marketed as Kenwoods. Kenwood, Kenvod, etc. I doubt he was referring to Baofengs…but I know they’re present from photos and videos emerging. Point is- the better you can get now, the easier it is later on.
- This is coming from citizen Militia types currently engaged in an ongoing conflict. If you do not heed the open source value of what they have to say, you have bigger problems than you realize.
Right now, we are very, very fortunate to be able to secure decent gear for a multitude of tasks. Take advantage of it.