"USMC Recon radio operator" Topic

Here is the radio operator of the Marine Recon unit. More at: link

To my mind, the best of the bunch…and that is saying something!

[I hated that long whip antenna ! Always getting caught on something !]

Thanks guys!

and did it get folded over and pinned down and, if it did, did that totally knacker its function?

I understand the aerial could be folded down but it would then have much lower range. It was designed to fold and not break. Troops operating far from base would have prearranged times they would set up to receive/send messages. There were also relay stations.

Due to the terrain these recon troops operated in, communications was a major headache.

Yes you are generally correct. But the long whip was segmented and the segments could be "folded" over so to speak and even held in place by a cord[US Army "550" cord], big rubber band, etc.

The shorter whip was easier to use but yes the range was shorter. And as always the terrain will and does effect commo. Sometimes we'd just move to a new location a short distance away.

"Standby, moving to a higher location, over …" … Then commo was good again… sometimes …

I have even ran relay on some occasions when one unit could not contact the other but I could hear both/all.

Nice looking figure. I've carried the PRC-25 with the long antenna. It will tend to throw you off balance and keeps swishing around when you are walking. I'd only use it when halted and then next to a tree to hide it. The tape antenna could be wrapped around your helmet to ide it. Ideally, you don't want to advertise you are the one with a radio.

Wolfhag

Now I have learnt much here. It always struck me that the radio operator was not wise to advertise his status, but that dirty great aerial did not help.

Dumb question then. Could he receive with the aerial folded/suppressed/even detached? Obviously depends on terrain and conditions/distance etc but would he at least get some alert that there was someone trying to contact him? So please do connect your aerial. Reason I ask is the message could be that "there is an NVA division beyond that hill ahead we forgot to mention earlier". Or was the idea instead that he would check in for updates at regular intervals?

I can never remember using PRC-77 without an antenna, usually the short whip. And yes as Wolf said the long whip could get a bit ungainly while moving thru broken/rough terrain, etc. Sometimes we'd put the long whip on/up if we were going to be in a location for awhile. Or of course if you think you could get better reception you may put up the long whip too. But we'd move a short distance first to see if that would help.

On occasion depending on the situation, etc., you'd have standard commo checks at a certain interval, e.g. 1 hr., etc.
In many cases the message would be something like, "SITREP … No change … over".

But in almost all cases any change in the situation, would be immediately reported to higher. And note the entire Co. is on the Co. Freq which would change every 24 hrs. So any unit i.e. Plt or Sec. in the Co. or attached their radio transmissions would be heard by everyone on the net/that Freq. The same situation would from Co. to Bn.

E.g. If 1st Plt seeing an enemy tank unit, the PL would report that to the Co Cdr. And everyone on the Co. Freq would here that. Then the Co Cdr would report that to high and every unit on the Bn net/Freq would he that as well.

Usually a Co Cdr and sometimes a PL would have two radios. One on the unit Freq and one on Higher's Freq.

There was a special backpack for the radio but I put mine in my backpack to hide it and kept my gear in a butt pack.

The worst thing about being the radioman was when you had an LT that insisted on holding the handset while running around. It was like being a dog on a leash being jerked around.

My son was in SigInt and carried a PRC-177 with a SatCom and cell phone jammer. Three times he had an antenna shot off.

Wolfhag

x2

Many thanks. Often wondered and great to learn from the experts

Deadhead,
Glad to help out. Legion has more first hand and longer experience than me. I'm just older and wiser than he is.

Legion 4,
The PRC-177 also has the ability to listen in on cell phone calls in the area. You go on patrol with a local interpreter that listens and translates and the info gets relayed to the patrol leader. My son's interpreter saved them from ambushes a number of times.

I know a local Iraqi Christian that was an interpreter for the Marines, Army, SEALs, and Spec Ops. He and his family had a price on their head but fortunately got a visa to come to the US. Unfortunately, the bounty was collected on a few of his friends because the US Govt dragged their feet on issuing them a visa. He was a lucky one.

The PRC-177 can record a cell phone call, and send it up to a satellite and bounce it back to Meade or Langley to be matched to the voice databases and determine exactly who was on the call. When they stop in an area for a few days he'd set up a wireless hotspot that put out a better signal than the local cell towers. Every time someone within a mile made a call they'd be listening in and also download their entire contacts directory.

Their ELINT Humvees were also equipped with equipment that could take the image from a sniper's scope and send it up the satellite to have the target get a facial recognition match to ensure they had the right guy and add his buddies to the database.

Historical trivia: The PRC-25 is really a slightly modernized and smaller SCR-300 backpack radio that was used in WWII. The SCR-300 was the real "Walkie Talkie" (first radio that you could walk and talk at the same time). The handheld one with the pop-up antenna was actually called the "Handy Talkie", another one Hollywood got wrong.

Legion, check your email.

Wolfhag

Legion has more first hand and longer experience than me. I'm just older and wiser than he is.

Can't argue with that ! 🧓👴😁

The PRC-177 also has the ability to listen in on cell phone calls in the area. You go on patrol with a local interpreter that listens and translates and the info gets relayed to the patrol leader. My son's interpreter saved them from ambushes a number of times.

Wow didn't know that ! Thanks ! Of course we didn't have cell phones back in 80s.

Yes, I have heard many that supported the US didn't fare well in the long run. Sadly like in SE Asia …

Email checked ! Wow ! Thanks ! 👍👍

Really appreciate the two of you coming back with such detailed answers to what I really did think was a dumb question.

deadhead,
I'll try to answer your question. I doubt if there was much you could receive without an aerial, I never tried it. The long fiberglass aerial was in three segments with a bungee cord type arrangement through the middle that would keep it together. You could probably use 2 segments but I never tried. Operating the radio was a lot of trial and error. I didn't like using the long one as it was a pain in the ass and we were normally less than 500m apart and there was not much need for it. At the Platoon level, we only talked to Company, never Battalion or above. The tape antenna was about 2 feet long, light and didn't get in the way.

At the Platoon level, we used runners to get the word to the Squad Leaders or they all met at the CP.

Regarding maintenance, nothing you could do in the field other than change a battery. I never opened one up.

One of the scariest times I can remember was going along a tight trail single file on the side of a mountain at
Pendleton with that damn long antenna and thinking it was going to pull me down the side of the mountain. It was always pulling you in the opposite direction you wanted to go.

We had one PRC-25 at the Platoon level. Normally a patrol would get an extra one from the Company HQ. IIRC if a subunit was out of sight you normally lost track of it as Squads didn't have a radio. The Platoon formation would get screwed up very quickly with the word being passed down the line to halt and take a knee until things got un-ed.

Being in a platoon skirmish formation going through light woods and trying to keep the line dressed was a pain because the terrain had everyone going at different speeds and very noisy. This is where the LT needs to run around with me in tow, like herding cats. Even at Geiger, an entire Platoon would get lost from the rest of the Company.

Getting back to the radio ops. The PRC-25 mostly sucked but fortunately, we didn't need to communicate more than a few hundred yards including to the Company HQ (usually a jeep). There were a few times in really thick terrain I had to relay between platoons. The PRC-25 had no crypto gear and the NVA had a lot of captured radios they could listen in on us. Map coordinates were changed every few days.

Regarding Force Recon in NVN I Corps. The whole idea was to "snoop & poop", break contact and not play Rambo. I'd envision the figure running while calling in an airstrike as he might need the long antenna so there are always exceptions. They could actually call in an air strike on their pursuers through triple canopy jungle while on the run. Force Recon did a lot of running to break contact. If you couldn't run fast for extended periods in full gear you didn't make the team.

In I Corps the Marines had a radio relay station in the middle of enemy territory. It was on a vertical karst a few hundred feet high that could only be reached by helicopter. Since the Force Recon units were miles away from friendly units there were various aerial relay stations overhead at all times, normally AF.

Force Recon operated in enemy territory and the NVA had dedicated trackers trying to get to them. The Marines had limited airlift capacity in I Corps and relied heavily on the Army Huey's to extract them (save their ass). They did an excellent job under fire and saved many Marines. Army chopper pilots were great, especially the 19-year-old WO's. Fearless as most 19 year-olds are. When you are young you just don't know any better.

So one last item. We had no training on the radio. It was like, "Hey big dude, get your ass over here and hump the radio". You just figured it out, not that complicated. We were all Grunts. The best thing was you didn't have to go on night patrols but did have a radio watch during the night at the CP.

A good book on Recon and LRRP operations in VN: link

Correction: In the previous post the PRC-177 should be 117, sorry about that. My son worked with all of that equipment in a Marine SigInt unit. He was approached by Gene Billingsley of GMT game to do a Spec Ops type board game based on Hornet Leader (Operators not Hornets) and outfitting each member with weapons, electronics, etc. I think he's looking at a mix of Hornet Leader, Mission Impossible, Omega Games Ranger, and his favorite computer game when he was a kid, Jagged Alliance. He did do a simulation for a unit of the German Army last year.

Legion, I knew you'd like that PDF. Just don't post it anywhere.

Wolfhag

I doubt if there was much you could receive without an aerial, I never tried it.

Ditto …

Just don't post it anywhere.

Yeah saw it had a classification. It will remain so in my hands …

The classification is old but much the equipment is still being used. My son freaked when I showed it to him.

Wolfhag

I guess we shouldn't be too surprised that classified tech, etc., shows up on the net … Even if it is older tech but it is still being used.

With Wikileaks and Snowden, et al, who knows what is out there. Save for what is known at the highest levels … which most of us will never know or even need to know.

I remember when I was at Ft Meade. The inside joke was we were making sure none of the classified information fell into the hands of the US citizens as the Russians had already stolen everything.

I have a certification in Network Security and I'd ask my son a question about some technology and he'd say it's classified and he can't talk about it. I'd then go into detail about it and his eyes would get big. His unit was put on a lie detector about once every 3 months or after deployments. His specialty was cell phones and cell towers.

All of the US allies use PRC-117 so the bad guys also have it too. However, according to my son, they've developed capabilities that are not from the factory. Nothing can replace HUMINT.

Wolfhag

Must say another thankyou for taking such trouble with detailed responses. Quite fascinating…..and hopefully nothing on a par with Wikileaks!

deadhead,
One last story I think you'll enjoy. A bad guy was being digitally tracked, I'm not sure if it was a SigInt unit or SpecOps. They did an SS7 hack on his cell phone and got his contact directory and monitored his calls and now his friends too. It turned out this guy (we'll call him Bobby Joe or BJ) was small potatoes so they started going after his contacts and frends.

Slowly every few days or every week his friends were going missing, got hit by a Hellfire or a bullet. After awhile his remaining friends thought it was on account of BJ. So BJ would call one of them and they'd shout at him not to call them, it's a wrong number he has no idea who BJ is, etc. Then a few days later that guy is KIA.

So anyhow it seems BJ started feeling guilty and responsible. One night, while tracking him with a NV drone he went out to a field, sat down, and blew his brains out with a pistol.

My son told me that a few months ago there was this bad guy sniper who had racked up numerous kills and had evaded his team. Someone finally tracked him down after 5 years and got him. Case closed.

Wolfhag

Wolf