Vanguard Magazine

HF T Talking Tech 34 JUNe/JULY 2016 www.vanguardcanada.com It's ancient, hard to use, has limited bandwidth and requires huge black boxes. i ts reliability and throughput issues make it greatly inferior to SATCOM for data communications. When you're talking about high-frequency (HF) communications, you're also talk- ing about low expectations. These are typical associations with HF technology in the age of SATCOM – so it might surprise you to learn that HF technology has come a long way since its inception in the 1930s. Modernized HF, particularly Wideband HF (WBHF), has undergone a transformation that makes it a formidable technology for the modern communication needs of both military and commercial users. WBHF – way beyond HF Not only does modern WBHF rival the reliability and throughput of narrowband SATCOM, it also strengthens the security of your overall communications system by doing one thing SATCOM can't: enabling forces to maintain their critical communi- cations network even in a satellite-denied environment. WBHF operating costs are a fraction of those associated with a SATCOM system. In fact, even with its significant advance- ments, WBHF has managed to keep its costs in line with legacy HF systems. Achieving such advancements in HF technology first required a belief in its potential. Rockwell Collins had that, and set about developing a line of modernized WBHF products that also would fully de- velop the technology's best capabilities. Rockwell Collins has provided HF tech- nology development and consultation for defence customers in Canada, Australia, Brazil, South Africa and elsewhere. Our HF systems are part of NATO military HF networks. Working with WBHF is a natural fit for Rockwell Collins. Our long-term expertise in HF is globally recognized. Rockwell Collins has been working with the High Frequency Industry Association and Mili- tary Standards (Mil Std) Technical Advi- sory Committee to draft military standards for WBHF for both fourth-generation (4G) Automatic Link Establishment (ALE) and 48 kHz WF. To date, we have invested several million dollars in the development of a WBHF product line in our Ottawa facilities, which are part of Rockwell Collins Canada. We continue to invest in bringing next-genera- tion HF capability to international military and commercial customers. The advantages of a WBHF radio The lead product in Rockwell Collins' ground, fixed-site WBHF line is the RT- 2200A wideband HF radio. This reliable, by Thaddeus Zeglen Forget everything you know about

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