Re: Banyan Vines / USMC

The Banyan Vines network was used extensively in Desert Storm/Shield/Sweep. Before the network was in place, people were using a single channel radio relay box called the Hadron. It was capable of being used with the KY-57 (crypto) on the PRC-77 (single channel radio), as well as satcom (PSC-3).

I've seen the Hadron. It's an impressive, fancy, TEMPESTed, MIL-SPEC box. When I opened it up, I found an ordinary, production, amateur packet radio TNC (terminal node controller) speaking AX.25. Kind of scary when you think about it. :-) What would normally cost a ham about $150-$200 probably cost the government about $5K each. Phil