E1735: When Infrastructure Fails Offgrid Radio in the Iran Crisis
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ham-radio-2-0--2042782/support.
Speaker 1: The attacks on Iran by the United States, and the
threat of war is winding down a little bit at
the time of this recording, but it started at the
end of February twenty twenty six, and I wonder how
two way radio is being used, if at all, during
this conflict. The ongoing conflict involving Iran, often referred to
as the twenty twenty six Iran conflict or US Israel
war against Iran, began with coordinated US and Israeli strikes
on February twenty eighth to twenty twenty six, targeting Iranian leadership,
including the killing of Supreme Leader Iatola, military command structures,
nuclear strikes, missile facilities, and naval assets. This escalated quickly
into a multi domain war, with Iranian retaliatory missiles, drones,
and proxy attacks across the region, including on Israel, US
bases and Gulf States and related targets. Two way radios,
tactical or handheld transceivers for short range voice communication remain
a fundamental tool in military operations, including this conflict. Despite
heavy relay alliance on advanced systems, Modern militaries, including the US, Israel,
and Iran. The IRGC using encrypted software defined radios systems
like Harris Falcon, Thales or Iranian equivalents for ground troops,
special forces, in command post and coordination in denied or
jammed environments. In this war, US and Israeli forces employ
advanced tactical radios integrated with secure networks, often frequency hopping
and encrypted to resist jamming. These support ground operations, special
forces raids if any expanded beyond air strikes and coordination
with air SE assets. However, electronic warfare plays a major role,
such as the U SEA eighteen G Growler aircraft jam
Iranian radar and tactical radio nets. This pressures two way
radio communications on the Iranian side by introducing noise interference
or forcing fallback to less secure modes. Iranian military relies
on two way radios for tactical communications, especially the IRGC
ground units, proxy militias, examples of Hezbola in real strikes
and surviving command structures amid degraded higher level networks due
to strikes on C two nodes and cyber ew attacks.
Reports indicate Iranian forces face fragmented communications from the US
and Israeli electronic warfare dominance, including jamming of radio frequencies
used by commanders to coordinate missile batteries or defenses and
proxy contexts. Example of HESBLA. Two way radios have been
noted in past incidents like pager radio detonations and prior escalations,
but current reports focus more on jamming disrupting voice nets. Overall,
two way radios serve as a resilient, low tech backup
when satellite links, data networks, and higher brand comms are
jammed or destroyed, common in this conflict's intense electronics warfare environment.
No public reports yet detail specific models or incidents of
two way radios. In other words, no major captures or
exploits are highlighted, but they underpin ground level operations amid
their air heavy campaign. This war remains active as of
the time of this recording, with ongoing strikes regional spill
over into Lebanon via Hezbla, with no clear end in sight,
although they're saying now it's drawing near to an end,
but I guess time will tell