Voice Of America

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In late August 2016, Datron was awarded a contract through the US Army to provide up to $495 million worth of communications equipment to the Afghan National Army (ANA) by 2021. Open sources note that, previously, the ANA had employed AN/PRC-77 radios, which can trace their lineage back to the late 1960s, plus a clutch of Russian systems including the R-130 and R-123 transceivers. The company also benefited from an earlier contract exercised through the US Army in May 2016 when it was tasked to provide $13.4 million worth of radios and spare parts to the ANA, with the contract to be completed this year. Chalking up additional successes in Afghanistan, Datron had earlier been awarded a contract worth $25.4 million in August 2009 to provide PRC-1077 VHF (Very High Frequency) man pack, HH-7700 VHF handheld and PRC-1099 HF (High Frequency) man pack radios. No information appears to have been published regarding the transceivers to be supplied to the ANA as a result of the two 2016 contracts.

I HARRIS

In late February, Harris unveiled its new RF300H-MP wideband man pack radio. This new product is part of the company’s FalconIII product line and is billed as: “the world’s smallest, lightest and fastest wideband man pack radio,” according to Harris’ official literature. This new product replaces Harris’ legacy AN/PRC-150C. Covering a waveband of 1.6 megahertz (MHz) to 59.9MHz, the AN/PRC-150C can handle data at rates of 9.6 kilobits-per-second (kbps) during HF transmissions. Harris’ new radio will transmit over a 1.6MHz to 60MHz waveband achieving data rates of up to 120kbps across wavebands of three kilohertz (KHz) to 24KHz in width. The RF300H-MP is a descendent, the company told