Tactical communications are military communications in which information of any kind, especially orders and military intelligence, are conveyed from one command, person, or place to another upon a battlefield, particularly during the conduct of combat. It includes any kind of delivery of information, whether verbal, written, visual or auditory, and can be sent in a variety of ways. In modern times, this is usually done by electronic means. Tactical communications do not include communications provided to tactical forces by the Defense Communications System to non-tactical military commands, to tactical forces by civil organizations, nor does it include strategic communication.
In radio communication, a transceiver is an electronic device which is a combination of a radio transmitter and a receiver, hence the name. It can both transmit and receive radio waves using an antenna, for communication purposes. These two related functions are often combined in a single device to reduce manufacturing costs. The term is also used for other devices which can both transmit and receive through a communications channel, such as optical transceivers which transmit and receive light in optical fiber systems, and bus transceivers which transmit and receive digital data in computer data buses.
The Allied military phonetic spelling alphabets prescribed the words that are used to represent each letter of the alphabet, when spelling other words out loud, letter-by-letter, and how the spelling words should be pronounced for use by the Allies of World War II. They are not a "phonetic alphabet" in the sense in which that term is used in phonetics, i.e. they are not a system for transcribing speech sounds.
A walkie-talkie, more formally known as a handheld transceiver (HT), is a hand-held, portable, two-way radio transceiver. Its development during the Second World War has been variously credited to Donald Hings, radio engineer Alfred J. Gross, Henryk Magnuski and engineering teams at Motorola. First used for infantry, similar designs were created for field artillery and tank units, and after the war, walkie-talkies spread to public safety and eventually commercial and jobsite work.
The Royal Corps of Signals is one of the combat support arms of the British Army. Signals units are among the first into action, providing the battlefield communications and information systems essential to all operations. Royal Signals units provide the full telecommunications infrastructure for the Army wherever they operate in the world. The Corps has its own engineers, logistics experts and systems operators to run radio and area networks in the field. It is responsible for installing, maintaining and operating all types of telecommunications equipment and information systems, providing command support to commanders and their headquarters, and conducting electronic warfare against enemy communications.
Base station is – according to the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) Radio Regulations (RR) – a "land station in the land mobile service."
Flag signals can mean any of various methods of using flags or pennants to send signals. Flags may have individual significance as signals, or two or more flags may be manipulated so that their relative positions convey symbols. Flag signals allowed communication at a distance before the invention of radio and are still used especially in connection with ships.
The United States Army Signal Corps (USASC) is a branch of the United States Army that creates and manages communications and information systems for the command and control of combined arms forces. It was established in 1860, the brainchild of Major Albert J. Myer, and had an important role in the American Civil War. Over its history, it had the initial responsibility for portfolios and new technologies that were eventually transferred to other U.S. government entities. Such responsibilities included military intelligence, weather forecasting, and aviation.
Military communications or military signals involve all aspects of communications, or conveyance of information, by armed forces. Military communications span from pre-history to the present. The earliest military communications were delivered by runners. Later, communications progressed to visual and audible signals, and then advanced into the electronic age. Examples from Jane's Military Communications include text, audio, facsimile, tactical ground-based communications, naval signalling, terrestrial microwave, tropospheric scatter, satellite communications systems and equipment, surveillance and signal analysis, security, direction finding and jamming.
The Communications and Electronics Branch is a personnel branch of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). The army component of the branch is designated the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals.
The Communications and Information Services Corps (CIS) – formerly the Army Corps of Signals – is one of the combat support corps of the Irish Defence Forces, the military of Ireland. It is responsible for the installation, maintenance and operation of communications and information systems for the command, control and administration of the Defence Forces, and the facilitation of accurate, real-time sharing of intelligence between the Army, Naval Service and Air Corps branches at home and overseas.
Signalman was a U.S. Navy rating for sailors that specialized in visual communication. See Signaller for more about the roles of Signalmen.
A radiogram is a formal written message transmitted by radio. Also known as a radio telegram or radio telegraphic message, radiograms use a standardized message format, form and radiotelephone and/or radiotelegraph transmission procedures. These procedures typically provide a means of transmitting the content of the messages without including the names of the various headers and message sections, so as to minimize the time needed to transmit messages over limited and/or congested radio channels. Various formats have been used historically by maritime radio services, military organizations, and Amateur Radio organizations.
The Royal Signals trades are the employment specialisations of the Royal Corps of Signals in the British Army. Every soldier in the Corps is trained both as a field soldier and a tradesman. There are currently seven different trades, each of which is open to both men and women:
The SCR-300 was a portable radio transceiver used by US Signal Corps in World War II. This backpack-mounted unit was the first radio to be nicknamed a "walkie talkie".
The SCR-68 was a military radiotelephone used by the US Army Signal Corps as an aircraft radio in the waning months of World War I. Due to its many problems, primarily its inability to communicate with other radios, like its ground component the SCR-67 or the larger truck mounted SCR-108, over large distances, the SCR-68 quickly became obsolete. Nonetheless, the SCR-68 was one of the first steps towards developing more effective messaging between pilots and commanders, even beyond military usage.
The Signal Corps or Nachrichtentruppe des Heeres, in the sense of signal troops, was an arm of service in the army of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS, whose role was to establish and operate military communications, especially using telephone and radio networks.
16-line message format, or Basic Message Format, is the standard military radiogram format for the manner in which a paper message form is transcribed through voice, Morse code, or TTY transmission formats. The overall structure of the message has three parts: HEADING, TEXT, and ENDING. This heading is further divided into procedure, preamble, address, and prefix. Each format line contains pre-defined content. An actual message may have fewer than 16 actual lines, or far more than 16, because some lines are skipped in some delivery methods, and a long message may have a TEXT portion that is longer than 16 lines by itself.
Wigwag is an historical form of flag signaling that passes messages by waving a single flag. It differs from flag semaphore in that it uses one flag rather than two, and the symbols for each letter are represented by the motion of the flag rather than its position. The larger flag and its motion allow messages to be read over greater distances than semaphore. Messages could be sent at night using torches instead of flags.
The communications systems of the German armed forces (Bundeswehr) include the strategic communication, information systems for the command and control of combined arms forces. It includes military intelligence, weather forecasting, and aviation of the German armed forces.
