Vehicle Roof Markings

[RADIOMAN015]

The USCG Aux has an optional Surface-To-Air Recognition Banner for its boats. These are the specs from the Operations Policy Manual

3.E.2. Use

Auxiliarists may display the surface to air recognition banner in the following manner:
• Display the banner in a horizontal plane, on the fore-deck, pilothouse, or bimini top. The base of the "A" must be towards the stern of the boat.

3.E.3. Construction

Auxiliarists may make a surface to air recognition banner under the following guidelines:
•
• Use international orange color for the background and black for the letter "A". The "A" must be 80% of the banner's height.

It should be easy to adapt that to a vehicle.

We ran a joint exercise with the USCG Aux on a river last year.  Our aircraft crews found that the dark lettering was difficult to see.  Also we found that having multiple boats on the water it's better to display a unique number or letter for each boat, so the aircraft coordinating any water response can give better instructions by easily identifying the USCG Aux vessel in that specific location.
RM     

[Capt Hudgins]

This is the first time I have used CAP Talk for a question.  I have an estimate for 4 foot by 3 foot decals for $110 for the radio call sign.  They are easy enough to install.  I checked with Nationals and was told roof marking are up to the individual wing.

Does anyone have any constructive suggestions I can take to my ES folks and Commander for review?  The vast majority of the "suggestions" have been negative as opposed to constructive.

Thanks!

[RiverAux]

I don't know about tying a banner to the roof of a vehicle that could be driving 70 or 80 miles an hour down a highway.  Of course, you're probably not going to be getting directions from an aircraft at highway speeds, so could wait until you're in the boonies to put it on. 

[Eclipse]

The call sign?  Why would you tie this to the radio?

A big "CAP" is all you really need, assuming you need anything.

[davidsinn]

The call sign?  Why would you tie this to the radio?

A big "CAP" is all you really need, assuming you need anything.

To differentiate from the other CAP vehicles? I can imagine some scenarios where you would have two vehicles working with one aircraft.

Idk about other wings, but here radios do not have call signs. People or vehicles have a callsign. I have used a handheld and the mobile on different channels to talk to different people and used the same callsign the whole time.

[SarDragon]

Unit base station radios also have assigned call signs.

[davidsinn]

Unit base station radios also have assigned call signs.

Actually the unit has a callsign, not the radio. My unit has a callsign but not a base station.

[Eclipse]

In my wing it is a hot mess based on the previous DC's "plan".

In theory, both people and stations are licensed with a call sign, however they will not issue call signs without a radio, and people with more than
one radio have multiple call signs, yet everyone uses the same one, all the time, for obvious reasons. 

I believe that between my 7 radios I have 7 call signs.

And then the other day our DC stopped by and we were talking this exact issues and he said "and after all that, no one uses their call sign anyway, because whenever we're doing "real work", we use tactical calls, anyway".  To which I rolled my eye and move onto something else.

[davidsinn]

In my wing it is a hot mess based on the previous DC's "plan".

In theory, both people and stations are licensed with a call sign, however they will not issue call signs without a radio, and people with more than
one radio have multiple call signs, yet everyone uses the same one, all the time, for obvious reasons. 

I believe that between my 7 radios I have 7 call signs.

And then the other day our DC stopped by and we were talking this exact issues and he said "and after all that, no one uses their call sign anyway, because whenever we're doing "real work", we use tactical calls, anyway".  To which I rolled my eye and move onto something else.

That's why you don't assign a callsign to a radio.

[Eclipse]

That's why you don't assign a callsign to a radio.

Yep.  I usually don't stop banging my head until it bleeds, but my Dr. has asked me to knock that off for a while.

[Spaceman3750]

In my wing it is a hot mess based on the previous DC's "plan".

In theory, both people and stations are licensed with a call sign, however they will not issue call signs without a radio, and people with more than
one radio have multiple call signs, yet everyone uses the same one, all the time, for obvious reasons. 

I believe that between my 7 radios I have 7 call signs.

And then the other day our DC stopped by and we were talking this exact issues and he said "and after all that, no one uses their call sign anyway, because whenever we're doing "real work", we use tactical calls, anyway".  To which I rolled my eye and move onto something else.

That's especially frustrating when you're trying to call a specific van (maybe on the inbound/outbound) so you call the callsign listed in emirs and get the callsign of the guy holding the mic back. At least airplanes can fairly reliably be called with an aircraft callsign so long as the guy in the right seat knows how to use a radio, which can be another issue unto itself.

[Flying Pig]

Our state police vehicles have a darker blue roof scheme so they use white lettering for the cruiser/vehicle number (which is the callsign assigned to the vehicle).  My understanding is that lighter colors are easier to see than darker colors from the air, so black lettering on a white van might not work that well.
RM

I spend all day looking at black numbers on white roof tops.  Never had a problem reading them.

[lordmonar]

You know...I don't really care about the numbers all that much.

Some sort of hi-vis marking that says "this white van is different" is all that is needed.

As Eclipse points out....we don't need this fucntion all that much and being able to tell the difference between that CAP van and another is even less often.

Heck.....simply tying a marker panel to the roof is all that you really need.

[BillB]

Which doesn't give any information as to the radio call of the van. A rooftop panel is great but who would the aircraft talk to without getting 2-3 vans responding to it at the same time. Just the vehicle radio call number on the roof solves that.

[wacapgh]

... because whenever we're doing "real work", we use tactical calls, anyway".

Tactical Calls - (1) Call signs. Properly issued Air Force Voice Call Signs (AFVCS, commonly called "Tactical call signs") CAPR 100-3, 1.3,a(1)

Functional Desiginators - "...Functional designators should reflect the nationally-standardized ICS/CAP positions or job functions that are represented, or geographic locations, or both. Examples of valid functional designators are "Air Ops" "Ground Ops" "Flight Line" "Admin" "Transport four" "Ground Team Six" "Jackson Base" "Camp Six" "Highbird", etc. Geographic prefixes are used ONLY with airborne relay stations or bases and other stationary facilities." CAPR 100-3, 1.9,b

Strangely enough, if the van is talking to a base, it is not required to use an AFVCS:

"...Mobile and portable stations need not state their AFVCS on frequencies used to communicate with a base, however, they must identify using their AFVCS using the same rules as for a base station if they are using a frequency without communicating to a base." CAPR 100-3, 109, e

Ex 97G 

[Eclipse]

No one is calling to talk to the van.

Using the station's ID is useless during missions.

[davidsinn]

No one is calling to talk to the van.

Using the station's ID is useless during missions.

Why don't we treat vans the same as aircraft? They both have tail numbers. We don't assign functional callsigns to aircraft so why not use the van's when it makes things less confusing like air to ground coordination?

Hypothetical: Ground team 3 is led by Firefox 245 and has members Firefox 333, FF 212 and FF 434. The van's ID number is 1234 which would make the callsign Firefox 1234. Aircraft N12345(callsign CAP1245) is over head. Which callsign makes the most sense for the aircraft to use? The van's number is painted on top(hypothetically) so it can be used in one way air to mud communication. If you have two vans working with the same aircraft it would be much easier for the aircraft to control.

[SarDragon]

No one is calling to talk to the van.

Using the station's ID is useless during missions.

No, you are talking to whoever's in the van. Vans can't talk. But, do you really care who you are talking to in the van? If the crew changes out for some reason, you still need to use the van's call sign, not necessarily any personal call sign within the crew. Like Sinn says, treat it like an airplane.

[RADIOMAN015]

In my wing it is a hot mess based on the previous DC's "plan".

In theory, both people and stations are licensed with a call sign, however they will not issue call signs without a radio, and people with more than
one radio have multiple call signs, yet everyone uses the same one, all the time, for obvious reasons. 

I believe that between my 7 radios I have 7 call signs.

And then the other day our DC stopped by and we were talking this exact issues and he said "and after all that, no one uses their call sign anyway, because whenever we're doing "real work", we use tactical calls, anyway".  To which I rolled my eye and move onto something else.

No reason why radio call signs assigned to the radio (s) shouldn't be used.   The Ground Base director knows what ground teams are deployed and should have the information for the Radio assigned to that team. If there's multiple radios, the team appropriate CAP callsign is utilized and the other radios use the callsigns that were previously issued for the radio.   At our mission bases, the CUL has a group of  reserved callsigns he can assign (one) to each specific team dispatched.   Usually the CAP vans already have working radio installed so that is the primary callsign, the portable could be one of the reserved call signs.

As far as you having seven radios, IF they all are authorized to transmit on CAP frequencies, likely your DC should assign only one callsign to you.  Pick the "radio of the day".  IF you decided to lend your other compliant radios, than there should be a cache of mission wing call signs that can be assigned at that time to EACH radio.   

We really dumd'd this who thing down to these so called tactical callsigns ground team #1, 2, 3, UDF Team Alpha -- so we really lost ANY chance of OPSEC whatsoever.   IF CHARTER OAK 47 is ground team 1,  only mission base really needs to know that, the aircraft can be instructed to contact CHARTER OAK 47, a team in their area on AIR 1 or CC 1 or whatever.  IF you want to go one step further come up with a way to put a temporary designator on top of the vehicle e.g. "A","B", "C", so the aircraft could say, vehicle alpha this is CAP 601, and the response would be CAP 601 this is CHARTER OAK 47, vehicle Alpha.  Further exchanges would use the proper CAP assign callsigns.
RM             

[RiverAux]

How is using Ground Team 1 less secure than using Charter Oak 47?  If anything, using permanent call signs in a mission environment would be less secure since those call signs have to be kept on a list somewhere, and such lists can get loose.  Ground Team 1 could be just about anyone in any vehicle. 

And you really think that its a good idea to have mission base and aircraft using different call signs to contact the same ground team?  If that isn't a whole bucketfull of confusion in the making, I don't know what is. 

And, in any case, the radio comm security issues will be going away in the not too distant future.