Advanced RTO: A Practical Exercise In Photos

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The RTO Basic Course’s task and purpose is to understand tactical communications with off the shelf gear. It’s a come-as-you-are class, just like it will be in a prepper’s retreat, rapidly getting new folks up to speed on essential tasks who may have a wide variety of equipment. The Advanced RTO course steps far beyond this; our mission is operational, focused on taking what we know and now making it much harder to be broken, even if all we have is an analog Baofeng, some coax and connectors, and a spool of wire. And for some, that may be all you have at some point. As often is the case, what we want and what we have are two different things; if you can effectively use what’s simple, everything else becomes an enabler.


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The Team’s Transmission site is prepared and the Yagi is aimed along the correct azimuth.
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The OPFOR is spotted conducting a movement drill. A SALUTE is prepared and encoded with our brevity matrix.
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The Yagi from our TOC is aimed along the bearing of our team in the field.
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The CTX-10 is up and running- a full review is inbound soon. This is a very impressive piece of equipment.
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Our HF crossband dipole is ready to roll. The CTX tunes the elements fast. Regional communications are now possible.

If you’re looking to add a new dimension to your training program, contact me for the next class on the schedule. There is no time like the present to take your skills, both as an individual and a small unit, to the next level.

God bless and I’ll see you out there.

7 thoughts on “Advanced RTO: A Practical Exercise In Photos

  1. NC, In the first photo there’s a little gold box. I’ve had it in my hands. It’s an interesting piece of kit. Reminds me of some of the Yaesu manpack rigs from the early 80’s only much lighter.

    1. It’s a commercial GMRS yagi that was going to be used in a linked repeater project. I picked it up for pennies on the dollar, but new I think they’re $60-70. If you can build a yagi (which is simple), it works just the same.

      The tripod is a simple cheap camera tripod from fleabay, the mounting system is a PVC pipe. 7.5dB of gain in whatever direction it’s pointing, making it much harder to detect unless you’re in its path. 🙂

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