I have been noticing many of our guys with the little commercial walkie talkies. I guess they are for inter-squad commo? Pretty good idea, I would think. Those things are pretty reliable.

Wonder if the guys are buying them themselves or are they unit issue?

Anyone know anything about any of that?

Anyone?

I would think its an inner-unit or for use in each compound.
Just mt thoughts.

We all use those things every year when we go hunting. Those and four-wheelers are the two best things every invented for hunting....

I'm gonna weigh in here..

Everybody uses them for nonsecure comms now.  It's frucking unbelievable.  You can go to FTX and every swinging dick has a Talkabout clipped to his LBE.

Around here (Luke AFB) its the motorola cell phones with the two way radio feature. All the security policemen you see at the gates have them.

Course they don't have cellular service in Iraq anymore, but when it gets back up they will probably show up there too.

the talkabouts are not issue. it was a major problem in bosnia because they were being employed at the company level where secure comms really should be used. that being said...i have 4 motorola 6900 GMRS radios i share with the the other 3 squad leaders in my platoon and along with VOX mics i have found them to be unbelievably effective. especially at night. sometimes you just have to communicate off the net and the talkabouts provide an effective backchannel. good discipline is essential because even though youre off the net its very unsecure. use callsigns and never speak of troop strength. GPS grids, or time hacks.

They also (USMC) brought a crapload of commercial GPS's before leaving as well.

Kind of weird thinking some 18 year old kid's life is depending on reading the user's manual of a consumer product.

One thing I've done that helps is that I run a modded Yaesu FT-50 HT on the FRS channels.  I can dial its output back to some ridiculously low level like 30 milliwatts.  It's harder to DF on than a 1W signal, especially if you keep it short-short.  I just tell whoever I'm speaking to not to respond.