Quote:
Originally Posted by 69stang
How does this Wave relay work? I've only messed with ANW2C on the 117G and 152A in a classroom environment and naturally it was made to sound like it was the best thing ever.
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The easiest (and shortest) way to explain it is to give you a link to it here:
http://www.persistentsystems.com/man...ble-unit-gen4/
The thing to remember is that what ever peripheral device(s) you are using, their performance ultimately boils down to the radio thats doing all the work. All of the mfrgs have cool add ons and peripherals like the ruggedized Android phone or android tablet for video and or SA type user interfaces and or software suite packages. Some people see the neat looking peripherals or the software interface and forget that the radio is what is enabling that software/video suite to do what it is doing. It's easy to get lost in the forest due to all the peripheral trees so to speak. If you find a gee whiz software suite or interface/GUI that appeals to you, or piece of hardware like a tablet, remember, its a peripheral and you should be able to plug it into any radio at the end of the day. The mfgrs wants you to buy it as a package obviously but some times it is easy to see that this set of peripherals and this radio might be a better combo for what ever your requirements are.
As was mentioned, all mfgrs had to submit a white paper before hand on their product(s). However, when push comes to shove, it is often seen that some mfgrs white paper claims don't match with reality. Those limitations are usually quickly spotted but in some, it may take some deeper testing or time with the system to finds its quirks/downside.
Not all mfgrs MANETS are created equal, some work better than others and do more with less power output and fewer nodes in the system than others. The other thing to remember is that the mfgr knows how to use his product and any others he has with him in the demo may also best know how to ensure the system works and position themselves automatically so that the net stays up and functional. It's a bit of gaming the system and knowing how the Tech works. When you have guys carefully positioning themselves in static positions, they aren't being realistic as our environment is fluid, such as clearing/working on an objective and moving through it as a unit. The system should be able to best "heal" itself and work regardless of how the man worn units and or other radios on non humans are positioned in the environment. Some of the systems are only capable of having one or a couple of people watching video at a time, others can have more watching video from different input sources at the same time but video is always the first to drop off once the data becomes too much for the pipe to handle. The way each mfgrs system handles that varies as well.
The other obstacle to tackle is going from MANET to regular comms, it can be done but its not gonna happen without basically a TOC type of platform be it i a dedicated vehicle or location where the "Hub" (my word) can take the manet traffic and then convert into comms as we know it.
Encryption is also another topic but I will for go it here for obvious reasons.
Again, I listed IMO, the best of them out there at this time. And I'll say again, the Rifleman's radio system is a huge joke and a money pit the Army is trying to justify. The only people I've run into that "like" the Rifleman radio are those pushing/supporting its existence. It's a square peg for a round hole IMO.