Currently, USAF has some 200 ROVER units in the US Central Command area of operations—and demand for the technology continues to grow. However, since the technology utilizes UHF frequencies, bandwidth management has become an issue just as it was with radios, says Harbin. “There comes a point where everyone can’t be on the same frequency,” he explained. The way to “manage it,” he added, is to assign “a unit a frequency.”
Retired Col. Carlyle "Smitty" Harris, known for introducing the "tap code" by which American POWs in North Vietnam could surreptitiously communicate with one another, died July 6. Harris was brutalized by the North Vietnamese over almost eight years of captivity.