SALUTE - a quick refresher

Started by Jonas Parker, November 13, 2012, 12:01:53 PM

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Jonas Parker

 SALUTE - a quick refresher

    Ok, from whatever cause, external, false flag, or internal, the S has HTF. Armed and possibly uniformed people, maybe speaking English, maybe not, are wandering through your neighborhood ?keeping the peace?. You want to pass this information on to an old friend some distance away with whom you have a regularly scheduled calling appointment (every odd numbered hour at 17 minutes after the hour for example), so you fire up your radio rig, point your antenna in his direction, crank the power down to 10 watts, and? oops! How can you transmit your information in the briefest possible yet most understandable format? Try SALUTE ? no, not the military greeting of enlisted men to officers, but the SALUTE format for transmitting information. For us ex-military types, take this post as a refresher course. For those never in the military, here?s the standard method of transmitting intelligence or other information.

    Size: What is the size of the unit?
    - # of personnel
    - # of vehicles (highway, rail, etc.)
    - # of equipment ( tents, weapons, etc.)

    Activity: What are they doing?
    - Deploying
    - Redeploying
    - Sustainment activities
    - Training
    - Defense

    Location: Where are they located at?
    - Grid Coordinates
    - Airfield
    - Military Base (OP, Kaserne, etc.)
    - Terrain Association

    Unit/Uniform: What unit do they belong to?
    - Company
    - Battalion
    - Brigade
    - Division
    What Type of Uniforms do they have on?
    - BDU?s
    - MOPP Gear
    - Special Ops Gear

    Time: What time of day/night did you observe?
    - Zulu or Local

    Equipment: What type of equipment did you see?
    - Types of weapons (M16A1?s or M16A2?s)
    - Types of Vehicles (Humvee?s, 5 Ton Trucks)
    - Types of Aircraft (AH-64?s, C-130?s)
    - Types of Gear (Parachutes, Alice Packs)


KC9TNH

GREAT refresher and segue into related topics.*

Pre-formatted reports, simple, known to the circle (your definition) have been used to report information quickly & precisely for some time. Whether it's calling for help, just sharing information, reporting your situation upon arriving at a new location, the key is that the standardized FIELDS - the categories of information - are already known. So there is no need to say each one again because it wastes time. A SALUTE report tells the recipient where the information you're about to give is going to get filled in. (SPOT is a somewhat abbreviated SALUTE.)

Others can be used to tell your (group, tribe, whatever) of a specific Serious Incident (SIR), someone simply needs some logistics help loading or moving something, humor your imagination.

And these types of things can actually be much faster via CW as well. Info conveyed has to be no-kidding accurate at the other end; a long, often phonetically spelled out voice report will get beat by a 1-time CW transmission almost everytime.

Thanks Jonas, great topic!


* MOO, they might not necessarily be here to "keep the peace" - they might be a roving band whose Guv teat has dried up and 'peace' is not on their agenda, but your stuff might be. Not that I'm cynical or anything...
8)