I need some help
 

I need some help if anyone can help me. I'm going to be going through the 18 E course and i was wondering if anyone could help me on some information that i can start studying on so i can get the one up. So if anyone could help me just please email me or i'll be checking later thank you. brock.buddles@us.army.mil

This is a general comment good for all MOS's.

Concentrate on what you are doing. Getting a "leg up" can work against you. Unless things have changed, they will teach you everything you need to know and more in the course.

Read a few books on the underground and covert opns during WWII. Nothing technical but interesting info on clandestine communications. Leave the technical stuff to the instructors.

Just my opinion.

Where are you in the Pipeline?

TR

Let me add one thing. Presuming they still teach Morse Code you may get a leg up there. I spent a lot of my evenings in Ding Dong School trying to master the 18 WPM sending and receiving tests. :eek:

Do a search and there are several sites (some free) on the Web where you can learn and practice.

A book on BASIC antenna theory can be helpful. The AARL Antenna Handbook was my bible and I almost always had it with me.

It is a great MOS. I'm glad to see they are sending more experienced students there. In my day the commo and demo classes were almost all pvts and Pfcs like me. The older soldiers with prior service tended to go to weapons and O&! training.

I lied in a privious post. I did get promoted in Training Group -- from Pvt E-2 to Pfc E-3. :D

They do not.

TR

I sorry to hear that. I took great satisfaction losing a great chunk of my ass with Baratto and Davis keeping it in the 18E program.

Jack Moroney

Sir:

I was there for that meeting. Some of the stupidest questions I ever heard were asked that day.

This decision to drop it was made about two or three years ago.

I agree that I liked having that capability, but it was decided that the time was better spent learning about computers and modern electronics.

Plus, as you know, it was a significant attrition point, even after dropping the standard to 15/15 GPM.

TR

So is the loss of an entire team because they couldn't make commo. Probably of all the MOSs, and I know I will probably get my nuts in a ringer over this, I felt that this was the most critical to the team. I felt so strongly about this that I required each of my teams to have two cross trained folks in commo and made sure all officers could send and receive at least 10 wpm so that they understood the complexities of what it took to get stuff out and in. On some of my exercises I would cache a walkman in one place, put a tape in a dead drop with the exfil msg on it at 16 wpm. If you couldn't recover the cache and dead drop and break the msg I let you wander around until I was ready to let you come home by activating an emergency contact procedure.

Jack Moroney

Jefe:

Not arguing the point, but consider this.

We have currently been at war for more than three years.

None of the SF casualties in this war I am aware of, or mission failures have resulted from an inability to make commo. IIRC, most have been from the USAF dropping ordnance on friendlies, with commo up.

Not saying that it can't or won't happen, but it hasn't been a significant factor so far, as far as I know.

TR

I think the GWOT is bigger than Middle East. However, I always thought of a SF medic as the best trained and most valuable member of a team in a UWOA. Not just for taking care of the troops but also MEDCAP.

Considering the changes/upgrades in communications, the challenge now lies in the complexity of setting up and establishing communications. Everything is computerized and technology is changing so fast. By the time I finished the Echo course, through Sage, Language School and SERE there was already new equipment on the team that I had not seen.

With the -137, HF commo has changed. You can damn near drag a 30' wire behind you and make commo on the move with a low probablity of being detected, if that was a concern in todays combat situations. Although, there where days (and nights) in Max Gain doing single channel HF data that I wished I had known morse code to burn my message through.

Good point para. When all else fails it seems you can pick up IMC. Even back when we were beginning high speed commo, a short burst of static could wipe out a whole page of info.

Point taken and understood, however I am not talking about the upper level of spectrum of conflict but the lower level. UW, plans for folks to go into areas now denied to us, urban opns where you may not be able to get a satellite shot, areas where the ability to just send and receive over a ground return line, lights, and other non-sophiscated means. The stuff we have now works great while the birds are flying and base stations are in range. Think long range commo where HF is the only option and atmospheric conditions absolutely suck. Code will always get thru where voice and data will not. I don't know, maybe this dinosauer's time has come and gone. Maybe I just don't think that technology is always the answer. Maybe I just am getting to old to change. And then maybe guys like Walker, Thorington, and other hard core commo guys that beat me around the head and shoulders from the 10th and could magically make commo anytime and anywhere just hit a spot of nostalgia for me where I feel that I might be betraying their efforts and skills. At any rate, it still pisses me off and I think it is a big mistake at the expense of graduating the appropriate number of folks from the 18E program.

Jack Moroney

For this scenario, the -137 ALE is your huckleberry. You are rarely going to detect or intercept it, you are not going to jam it and with the right antenna, a Kaluha Off-Center, short of a serious solar storm, atmospheric conditions will rarely effect it.

I like you. Let's be friends. :)