Radio Callsigns

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Tazak
Posts: 1461
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 11:57 am

Radio Callsigns

Post by Tazak »

Bear with me on this post, its a lot of information and questions at the end:

In the British Army forward unit radio nets would be setup so that each company/sqn would have its own net, the Coy/Sqn HQ would have a 2nd radio setup on the battalion command net who in turn would have a radio setup on the brigade net.

With the radios there was a annoying manual encryption system called BATCO (battle code which I'm not going to explain here), on the BATCO sheet there was a callsign prefix section (remember this its key later on in the post), the prefix was used in case 2 or more units with the same callsign were operating on the same net.


On the company net the coy HQ would have the callsign 0 (zero), and the commanding officer would be OA (zero alpha), each platoon would be number 10, 20 and 30 and the platoon commanders would be 10A,20A and 30A, sections within each platoon would be X1, X2 and X3 (X= platoon number), each fire team would use C or D e.g. callsign 12C would be 1st platoon 2nd section first fire team. In addition various key personal would have their own callsign such as the company ambulance would be 14B.
Normally all units would use the same callsign prefix e.g. Tango10A, if there were attached units operating on the company net they would normally use the prefix from their own command net - think attached milan teams

On the battalion net it operated similar to above so Bn HQ was 0 (zero), Bn CO was 0A, companies were 10, 20 and 30 etc

Hopefully your with me so far.

So an example company net would see the following
0 - Coy HQ
0A - Coy CO
0B - Coy 2ic
Tango10 - 1st plt
Tango10A - 1st plt commander
Tango11C - 1st plt, 1st section, 1st fire team
Tango11D - 1st plt, 1st section, 2nd fire team
Tango20 - 2nd plt
Tango20A - 2nd plt commander
Tango21C - 2nd plt, 1st section, 1st fire team
Tango21D - 2nd plt, 1st section, 2nd fire team
Foxtrot 22C - attached milan section
foxtrot 22D - attached milan section

the list can and often did go on but I wont.

Question time - how do other nations work their radio radio/callsigns

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Alex1812
Posts: 255
Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 1:41 am
Location: Russia
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RE: Radio Callsigns

Post by Alex1812 »

Soviet army used new Callsigns before each new operation. Callsign contains one word and the number. In radio traffic used only one of them in general. Here is quick real example from one site about Chechen war:

Chrome-40 81st MRR commander

Iron-29 3rd TB commander

River-80 1st MRB commander
Rosa-74 1st mortar battery commander
Kulik-84 1st MRC commander
Grunt-43 1/1 MRC commander
Kiosk-83 2/1 MRC commander
Omega-62 3/1 MRC commander
Fara-47 2nd MRC commander
Aliut-81 1/2 MRC commander
Fasad-59 2/2 MRC commander
Arenda-48 3/2 MRC commander
Grenadier, Russian Corps
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IronMikeGolf
Posts: 1054
Joined: Fri Mar 19, 2010 7:53 pm

RE: Radio Callsigns

Post by IronMikeGolf »

This is from ancient memory and while I was not a commo rat, I dod talk on a few radios. With that caveat...

For the time period we've been discussing, US Army frequency, callsign, and encryption management was, I believe, at the Division level (for the forces we play with in the game). All this stuff was in a handbook called a CEIO (Communication Equipment Operating Instructions). It had call signs and frequencies assigned to units by "time period". In routine training, the time period was 24 hours and there were 31 time periods in the CEIO. For an exercise, there would be a CEIO for that exercise published. Along with the freqs and callsigns, each time period had a crypto sheet. This was used both to authenticate stations for IFF and to encrypt pieces of info. Mostly map grids and brevity codes. The document was actually a handbook and had info on building antenneas from scratch wire, setting up switchboards, erecting antenna set (e.g RC-292). Privattes were taught how to use this stuff, including encrypting grids.

Call signs were random. Now, there were callsigns, callsigns, and callsigns. Technically, a callsign was a 3 character (alphabetic or alphanumeric, I can't recall) identifier for a unit (down to platoon). Persons/duty positions were identified with a suffix. Within a radio net one routinely operated in, one abbreviated their callsign down to just the last letter, followed by their suffix. That last letter of the callsign was unique within a particular radio net. Callsign and suffix was changed with each time period. So, for a particular time period, a battalion might be E2F and A Company might be G4W. The commander suffix might be 27. On the Brigade and Battalion nets, the Battalion commander would be F27. On Battalion and Company nets, the Company Commander would be W27. There were also "informal suffixes" like "Actual" and "Romeo" (for Commander and his RTO). Also there were the following: Numbers 1 through 4 were those staff officers (1=S1, 2=S2, etc). 6=Commander. 5=XO. 7= Senior NCO (CSM or 1SG). This mirrored the vehicle bumper number scheme.

This was pretty much how it was done at Battalion and lower echelons in the infantry (non-mechanized) units I was in from 78 to about 90. 1990 I got assigned to a mech inf battalion. Things were different. Callsigns were unit nicknames or vehicle bumper numbers (in line units). So, for example, I was in 4-8 Inf, "The Fighting Eagles". "Eagle 6" was the Bn Cdr, "Eagle 3" was the Battalion Operations Officer. My company was A Company, "Warriors", so that Commander was "Warrior 6", with XO and 1SG being "Warrior 5" and "Warrior 7". 1st Plt was "1-1" (spoken as "one one", "1-2", "1-3", and "1-4". The Plt Ldr rode the "1" track and the Plt Sgt rode the "4" track. A "Romeo" was an RTO, a "Delta" was a driver. I was "Warrior Mike Golf", the Company Master Gunner. For my sins, I was later made "Eagle Mike Golf" and then "Iron Mike Golf", "Iron" being for "Old Ironsides", the 1st Armored Division.
Jeff
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