I doubt this has made it far up the food chain... the Force Protection Officer, the SigO and the the SigInt guys should be screamin' bloody murder...
we were the OpFor against a MEU... we waxed 'em cuz they were usin' unauthorized handhelds... they thought they were using secure system of passwords and codes, but any moron with a few days, knowledge of the area, and a scanner could've had their playbook down pat... like we did...
a company, against a MEU... we inflicted over 600 casualties... to include shootin' down four helicopters... it was an embarassment that never made any headlines... the after-action report got buried... but the Div CG did find the funds to buy secure handhelds...
*sigh*... how much $ do I need tuh send yuh?...
btw... we need tuh roast AudioVox's chestnuts over an open fire...
I love the holiday season! Sign me up.
The best price from a reputable dealer is $43 per pair for the Motorola T5720 (AA model). The T5920 is about $25 per pair more. It's rechargeable (actually, I think they all can either use batteries or a rechargeable battery pack). The T5920 has 99 "privacy codes" per channel, as opposed to 22 for the other model It also has a "vibrate" model for paging another unit.
I don't have enough expertise in this area to know if the extra money is worth the price. These guys are Reserve, so they may never see the latest commo gear. It breaks my heart that they're buying civilian non-secure radios, but they're the troops on the ground, and have decided it helps their survival, as opposed to no radios at all.
Steve said the Motorolas are only used when away from the trucks, which have donated CB radios {shudder}. What is the best thing we can do for these troops? Money is no object for buying 3 pairs of these radios, even for me. But I'd like to have a clean conscience, knowing I was doing the right thing by the troops.