# Harris RF Awarded DND Contract



## V_I_Lenin (17 Nov 2014)

More info at link...

http://rf.harris.com/news/view_pressrelease.asp?act=lookup&pr_id=3724

Apparently they will be supplying, "...AN/PRC-152A wideband handheld radio, AN/PRC-117G wideband manpack radio, as well as the RF-7800H high-frequency manpack...". No mention of number of units. 

I wonder if these are replacing or supplementing existing 521's and 522's...?


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## Occam (17 Nov 2014)

mark-space said:
			
		

> No mention of number of units.



Lots.   ;D



> I wonder if these are replacing or supplementing existing 521's and 522's...?



Army nomenclature isn't my strong suit, but if that's CNR(E), then supplementing is the correct answer.


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## BorisK (18 Nov 2014)

As a naive civilian, I had no idea one could transmit live biometric data of soldiers back to command using the same radios being used for comms.  I know there are lots of other highly coveted features [live video as one example] but I just wanted to say that's some pretty impressive engineering to say the least.  Cool stuff. 

I'll be quiet now


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## Ludoc (18 Nov 2014)

BorisK said:
			
		

> As a naive civilian, I had no idea one could transmit live biometric data of soldiers back to command using the same radios being used for comms.


What are you talking about?



			
				mark-space said:
			
		

> I wonder if these are replacing or supplementing existing 521's and 522's...?


 I am pretty sure the plan is to eventually replace all man-packs/hand-helds with Harris radios and upgrading vehicle installs to next generation GD radios. I'm sure it will be just as successful as the plan to push data comms over EPLRS.


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## V_I_Lenin (18 Nov 2014)

Ludoc said:
			
		

> I am pretty sure the plan is to eventually replace all man-packs/hand-helds with Harris radios and upgrading vehicle installs to next generation GD radios.



If that's the case, 180 million bucks is a helluva lot less than the cost of the original TCCCS contract. Of course, no fabulous field printers and "laptops" included this time....


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## BorisK (18 Nov 2014)

Ludoc said:
			
		

> What are you talking about?



Sorry... Way out of my lane - I was browsing the Harris website and they mentioned in some literature that one feature of the uses of the available bandwidth could be transmitting real time biometrics from soldiers equipped with the appropriate sensors.  

Obviously one could use available bandwidth for a wide variety of applications, I just thought that was an interesting use.  

I'm a civilian so I haven't been exposed to some of the more interesting bits of engineering the military has to offer.  More in-depth real time data is in my mind a plus for the profession though - so at the least I'm glad (to some degree) to see this acquisition for our soldiers as the increased feature-set looks like it could aid our men and women to some degree at least.


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## Sig_Des (18 Nov 2014)

This is pretty good news.

Assuming 100 of the 180 mil was going directly to radios, with a price point of 25k per unit, we'd be looking at about 4000 radios. This is just rough math, and I'm not sure how the contract is broken up (EIS, training and support, vehicle ancillary equipment, etc.) but this will very likely be a good thing.

In my experience the 152A and the Golf are both VERY capable radios. Very user friendly, very interoperable with other radio systems, and the room for development of use is wild.

I've played around with ANW2 on the Golf, and I really hope to see us start using it in Canada. That and the ability to push 10w VHF/20w UHF on a single 5590 is sweet, plus integration into tablet systems to say, control a handheld UAV, is money.

Where I see this contract getting bogged down is having to refit vehicles to use these systems. It shouldn't be too complicated, but we all know it will be.


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## PuckChaser (18 Nov 2014)

CNR(E) is a separate program upgrading the guts of the current 5121 radios. Due to the upgrade, the 522 will no longer work in manpack role, which the current stock of 152 and these 152a will fill. The golfs look like a top up for the several hundred we had for Afghanistan which were mostly foxtrots. Looks like we're finally replacing the 138 and 1694 HF radios to keep the capability alive.


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## Occam (18 Nov 2014)

Was at the Harris presentation in Ottawa this morning, the purpose of which was to demonstrate the capabilities of the new radios in the NISO.  Really impressive stuff.  PuckChaser, I can tell you that the golfs are not a topup; the foxtrots' days are very numbered, and that's all I can say.


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## PuckChaser (18 Nov 2014)

Harris makes great kit, glad to see we're buying so much of it.

Occam: Just by looking at the spec sheet in comparison, I can see why Foxtrots would be on the way out (amongst other reasons).

For those looking for a little bit more info on the new radios, grabbed all the Harris spec sheets:

AN/PRC 152A - http://rf.harris.com/media/AN-PRC-152A_DataSheet_web_tcm26-18518.pdf
AN/PRC 117G - http://rf.harris.com/media/AN-PRC-117G_WEB_tcm26-9017.pdf
RF-7800H Manpack - http://rf.harris.com/media/RF-7800H-MP_tcm26-21753.pdf


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## Brasidas (18 Nov 2014)

PuckChaser said:
			
		

> Harris makes great kit, glad to see we're buying so much of it.
> 
> Occam: Just by looking at the spec sheet in comparison, I can see why Foxtrots would be on the way out (amongst other reasons).
> 
> ...



Any murmurs about a base station replacement, or might the HF transceiver fit into the old amps?


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## Occam (18 Nov 2014)

Brasidas said:
			
		

> Any murmurs about a base station replacement, or might the HF transceiver fit into the old amps?



If I'm reading the NISO catalog correctly, shock mount adapters are available for using the Falcon III HF kit with Falcon II 125 and 400 watt amps.


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## RedMan (23 Nov 2014)

I can only speak of what I have seen with what is happening with vehicle use.

Yes, some 5121's are being upgraded to become CNR-E radios to work with E-lan which is being used in the LAV 6. CNR-E will not work as a manpack.

Many of our current SR2 equipped vehicles already have 117 capability along with EPLRS. Their use to this day seems to be very little, and getting the 117 to play nice with IRIS lan is not a very practical process. Hopefully, by ditching IRIS LAN with the new E-LAN upgrade will solve some of these issues with the 117 integration.


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## Occam (23 Nov 2014)

Thanks for the clarifications.  I wasn't sure of the nomenclature of the radios that were supposed to be installed years ago on some ships as "CNR" radios (if money hadn't run out, that is), but it turns out they were 5121 sets.  They were about to proceed with installing the same kit on a newer class of ship, which struck me as a little odd.  After discussing it with the LCMM, my suspicions were correct.


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