Posted: 9/27/2011 8:33:11 PM EDT
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Evidently so. Saw this on Military Times' Gear Scout site. Article is about iPad and smart phones on the battlefield. Interesting read...
Harris Corp. of Melbourne, Fla., has developed a miniature cell tower mounted on a Humvee that provides cell coverage to remote areas with patchy or nonexistent service. The system, named KnightHawk, generates connectivity by providing network signals for up to a three-mile radius. "Troops aren't typically dropped in an area where AT&T and Verizon have coverage," said Edward J. Zoiss, Harris' vice president of advanced programs and technology. "That's where Harris comes in." The company, which also makes military radios, believes that the services will use smart devices at the front lines in battle, and that KnightHawk will provide coverage. Harris has also developed an app called Eyes-on-Target that enables troops to share streaming video on their phones — rather than use radios and hand and arm signals. Taking iPads into battle |
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Quoted: So these are basically mounted mobile repeaters? It's just a wireless base station in a rack mounted in the vehicle with an RF cable running out to an omni antenna. A very lite and short cell tower. |
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Quoted:
How long till the iPhone comes with a laser rangefinder and designator? 
Need CAS? There's an app for that.  WINNING! Seriously, an old technique with modern equipent. Used to have re-transmit radio trucks supporting my BDE when we'd go do training rotations at NTC back in the '90's. I saw HMMWV's & Deuce and a halfs configured that way. One time, I had to suggest to a young female 2LT operating a HMMWV version that it might be a good idea to get her vehicle off of the ridgeline as she was sihouetting herself & would make a good target. She decided that the E-4 in the combat arms MOS might have a valid point & moved to a better/safer location. |
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Quoted: So imagine the bad guys suddenly notice that their cells are working! It shouldnt be too hard to track down cells connecting to the tower and localize the signal. I'm pretty sure we don't want the current bad guys using cell phones near our troops anyway. And without confirming or denying anything I wouldn't be surprised if any theater that featured IED's this cell technology would be mostly worthless at the "front line." |
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One time, I had to suggest to a young female 2LT operating a HMMWV version that it might be a good idea to get her vehicle off of the ridgeline as she was sihouetting herself & would make a good target. She decided that the E-4 in the combat arms MOS might have a valid point & moved to a better/safer location. That's the conundrum with line-of-sight comms - High location = better radio coverage High location = attractive target |
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Quoted:
So imagine the bad guys suddenly notice that their cells are working!
It shouldnt be too hard to track down cells connecting to the tower and localize the signal. Limit the phones that are able to use the site. Although I guess the bad guys would still be able to use them for emergency calls. We could just route them to a call center.
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Quoted:
Quoted:
So imagine the bad guys suddenly notice that their cells are working!
It shouldnt be too hard to track down cells connecting to the tower and localize the signal. Encryption, how does it work?  Yagi antennas and a radio receiver. How do they work
All the encryption in the world does not help when a guy just needs two bearings. |
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Welcome to the 80's.
The Army's MSRT were basically Humvee mounted cell towers. I remember calling Ft Hood from a M1009 Balzer from NTC with it when it first came out. Not FM repeaters, but real live cellular based equipment. It works for some things, but the reality is the battlefield moves too fast for these things to actually do any good in battle. They spent most of the time moving from one place to another, then by the time they set up, the battle had moved beyond the cell. They were pretty pointless for tactical commo really. Follow-on units can use them effectively, and if you had a temproray FOB-type thing, they wouldn't be bad. They might be good for something like disaster relief. It would allow relief folks to use enabled phones to get shit done. You couldn't make acess public, or they'd just overload the system. Probably more efficient than a sattelite based-system, just not as flexible. |