SINCGARS
SINCGARS stands for "Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System." It provide U.S. and allied military commanders with a reliable, secure, easily maintained Combat Net Radio (CNR) that handles voice and data. Vehicle-mount, backpack, airborne, and now handheld form factors are available.
SINCGARS uses 25 KHz channels in the VHF military radio band, from 30 to 88 MHz. It has both single-frequency and frequency hopping modes. The frequency-hopping mode has a slow hop rate (on the order of 100 Hz), which is well within the ECM capabilities of modern follow-on jammers, so it no longer provides anti-jam security against technologically advanced adversaries.
SINCGARS users maintain communications security (COMSEC) through the VINSON family of encryption devices. Early SINCGARS radios required an external encryptor such as the KY-57; modern versions have embedded COMSEC.
Audio transmitted by SINCGARS radios is compressed with 16 Kbps CVSD.
The SINCGARS family has mostly replaced the incrementally-improved Korean-war and Vietnam-war-era crystal-controlled radios (AN/PRC-77 and AN/VRC-12). An aircraft radio SINCGARS is in production, and is phasing out the current air-to-ground radios (AN/ARC-114 and AN/ARC-131).
Timeline:
- 11/1983 ITT wins the contract for the first type of radio, for ground troops.
- 5/1985, ITT wins the contract for the airborne SINCGARS.
- 7/1988 General Dynamics wins a second-source contract for the ground radio.
- 4/1989 ITT reaches "Milestone IIIB": full-rate production.
- 12/1990 1st Division is equipped.
- 12/1991 General Dynamics wins the "Option 1 Award" for the ground radio.
- 3/1992 ITT wins a "Ground and Airborne" award.
- 8/1993 General Dynamics achieves full rate production.
- 4/1994 ITT and General Dynamics compete for the ground radio.
- 5/1994 ITT wins a sole-source contract for the airborne radio.
External Links