<Document>
  # Getting On The Net

  This page takes you from spawning in to holding a working conversation on a radio net. It assumes you have never touched the comms system before and explains every step as you take it.

  If something does not work, the last section of this page lists what usually causes it.

  <Box>
    <GuideEntityEmbed Entity="AU14HeadsetGovforMarineFTL" Caption="Field Headset"/>
    <GuideEntityEmbed Entity="ANPRC117GRadio" Caption="AN/PRC-117G"/>
  </Box>

  ## Step 1: Work out what you are carrying

  Almost everybody spawns with a [bold]field headset[/bold] in their ears slot. This is your personal radio and it is all most roles ever need.

  A small number of roles also spawn with an [bold]AN/PRC-117G[/bold] manpack radio in their back slot. It is large, it is obvious in your inventory, and it is the thing that makes everyone else's headset work.

  Open your inventory and check both slots before you do anything else.

  - [bold]Headset only[/bold] - read step 2, then step 3, then skip to the handset section.
  - [bold]Headset and manpack[/bold] - read the whole page. You are the reason your squad has comms.

  ## Step 2: Understand why radios go dead

  This is the single thing that confuses new players most, so read it before you try to transmit.

  Your headset is not a phone. It does not reach across the map on its own. Combat nets are [bold]relay-gated[/bold]: your headset only works if it is standing near something that anchors the net.

  Anything on this list will anchor a net:

  - A powered AN/PRC worn by a trained operator.
  - A deployed retransmission station.
  - A command-post antenna mast.
  - A powered shipboard communications array.
  - A vehicle radio aboard a dropship or vehicle, covering little more than the hull.
  - A field antenna mast raised from ten metal sheets by engineering-trained personnel.
  - A clandestine base station or a staked-down relay set, if you are with the CLF.
  - Any mast or array the CLF have spliced a tap into.

  If none of those are within range of you, your squad net is dead. Not degraded. Dead. You will speak and nothing will happen.

  This is why the radio operator matters, and it is why walking away from the person carrying the pack cuts you off. In a squad that is usually your [bold]Fireteam Leader[/bold].

  Colony and civilian channels are the exception. They are not gated and work anywhere, which is also why anyone can listen to them.

  ### How far is "near"

  <Table Columns="2" MinForcedColumnWidth="120">
    <ColorBox Color="#263238">
      <Box Margin="4">[bold]Distance from the anchor[/bold]</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox Color="#263238">
      <Box Margin="4">[bold]What you get[/bold]</Box>
    </ColorBox>

    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">0-30 tiles</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">Clear traffic both ways.</Box>
    </ColorBox>

    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">30-45 tiles</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">Readable but degraded. Words go missing.</Box>
    </ColorBox>

    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">Beyond 45 tiles</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">Nothing at all.</Box>
    </ColorBox>
  </Table>

  Coverage reaches one level above or below the anchor, so a tunnel or a lower deck usually needs its own relay. Only a shipboard array covers a whole site vertically.

  ### If you are with the CLF

  The CLF has no communications array and never gets one. Your coverage is either something you build, or something the enemy already built that you tap.

  <Box>
    <GuideEntityEmbed Entity="AU14CLFNetSpliceKit" Caption="Splice Kit"/>
    <GuideEntityEmbed Entity="AU14CommsMastField" Caption="Field Mast"/>
    <GuideEntityEmbed Entity="AU14CLFBaseStation" Caption="Base Station"/>
    <GuideEntityEmbed Entity="AU14CLFClandestineRelay" Caption="Relay Set"/>
  </Box>

  #### Tapping somebody else's mast

  Every fixed mast and array has a feeder junction, and a junction can be spliced. Do it and your cell nets run on that mast at that mast's range. A command-post mast is worth 75 tiles to you. A site array is worth 200.

  A tap [bold]adds[/bold] your nets and takes nothing away. The mast keeps carrying whatever it carried before, for whoever built it. Splicing one does not knock it down, jam it, or cut the garrison off it. If you want a mast gone, break it.

  You need a [bold]net splice kit[/bold], built at the sapper's workbench, and you need to be the [bold]Radio Operator[/bold]. Nobody else is trained for it.

  Use the kit on the mast. Getting the cover off takes several seconds, then the splice panel opens. The trunk carriers are hidden somewhere in the band and you have to find each one:

  - [bold]PROBE[/bold] a position and the panel reports what came back. A strong reading means you are close. A zero means there is no carrier within thirty of where you looked.
  - [bold]LOCK[/bold] when you think you have it. Within three positions and the carrier is yours. Miss it and you lose two probes and take a large hit to the detection meter.
  - Probes are shared across the whole job rather than given per carrier. Each one nudges detection a little. A missed lock costs twenty times as much, so probe again rather than guess.

  Sweep coarsely before you do anything else. Three probes spread evenly across the band will always touch a carrier, and from there you walk in on whichever came back strongest.

  Run out of probes, or fill the detection meter, and the job fails. The kit is gone and the junction drops into fault for ninety seconds, during which nobody can splice it again. Bring a second kit if you want a second try, and expect to wait.

  The mast throws sparks the whole time you are working on it, and keeps sparking through the fault. Neither is subtle. Put someone on the approach before you start.

  #### Building your own

  - A [bold]field antenna mast[/bold] is ten metal sheets and eight seconds, and gives 75 tiles clear and 100 degraded. Your Cell Leader, Radio Operator, Guerillas and Machine Gunners all have the engineering skill for it. It is also tall, outdoors only, and anyone can tap it or break it, marines included.
  - A [bold]clandestine base station[/bold] reaches 55 clear and 80 degraded and can be worked on its handset, which no relay can. It is too heavy to conceal on a person, so the place you hide it is a place worth defending.
  - A [bold]relay set[/bold] reaches 35 clear and 50 degraded and has no controls on it at all. It is the weakest thing on this list. Use it where there is no mast to tap and no room to raise one, such as inside a building or down a tunnel.

  Only your Cell Leader and Radio Operator can stake down a relay or a base station.

  #### What it costs you

  None of this is hidden from the enemy.

  A [bold]tap[/bold] sits at the foot of the mast where anyone walking past can see it. It can be shot, and anyone can pull it off in eight seconds. Whoever does gets its keying module, which reads your cell's traffic until your leadership orders a recrypto.

  A [bold]relay[/bold] is staked down, not locked down. Anyone can pack one up in three seconds and walk off with that piece of your coverage.

  Put both somewhere nobody has a reason to walk past.

  ## Step 3: Say something on your headset

  With the headset worn in your ears slot, type a colon, the letter h, a space, and your message:

  [color=#a4885c]:h Radio check, over.[/color]

  If the net is anchored and somebody is listening, they will see your message with your callsign in front of it.

  Your headset may carry more than one net. Examine the headset to see which prefixes it holds. Common ones:

  - [color=#a4885c]:v[/color] for command, if your headset has the command key.
  - [color=#a4885c]:a[/color] for Alpha, if your headset has the Alpha key.

  A headset cannot use a net it does not have the key for. There is no way to add one in the field.

  Note that your [bold]name is never transmitted[/bold]. Everyone on the net sees your callsign instead, friendly or hostile. Face to face speech is unaffected, so people standing next to you still hear you normally.

  ## Step 4: Open the radio panel

  Everything from here needs an AN/PRC on your back and the training to use it.

  Only these roles can open the panel and transmit through the radio:

  <Table Columns="2" MinForcedColumnWidth="110">
    <ColorBox Color="#263238">
      <Box Margin="4">[bold]Faction[/bold]</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox Color="#263238">
      <Box Margin="4">[bold]Trained roles[/bold]</Box>
    </ColorBox>

    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">[bold]GOVFOR and OPFOR[/bold]</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">Commander, Adjutant, staff officers, engineering officers, intelligence officers, synthetics, squad leaders, Fireteam Leaders, and Radio Traffic Operators.</Box>
    </ColorBox>

    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">[bold]CLF[/bold]</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">Cell Leader and Radio Operator.</Box>
    </ColorBox>
  </Table>

  Both regular factions field the same set of trained roles, so a captured enemy pack is useful to the same people on your side.

  If you are not on that list the panel will not open for you. You have two ways round it: use somebody else's handset, covered further down, or read a [bold]field radio operator's pamphlet[/bold] if one is available, which trains you permanently.

  To open it:

  - Wear the radio in your [bold]back slot[/bold]. It does nothing in a bag or on the floor.
  - Alt-click the radio, or open its verb menu.
  - Select [bold]Open Radio Panel[/bold].

  The panel opens with a status line across the top. Read it now, because it tells you what is wrong before you waste time hunting.

  - [bold]READY[/bold] means the radio is worn and has an active net. This is what you want.
  - [bold]NOT WORN[/bold] means it is not in your back slot.
  - [bold]NO NET[/bold] means you have not set up a slot yet. That is normal on a fresh radio.
  - [bold]STBY[/bold] means part of the setup is still incomplete.

  ## Step 5: Add your first net

  A fresh radio has no nets loaded. You build them yourself, into what the panel calls slots. The radio holds up to [bold]four[/bold].

  Work through this in order:

  - Select [bold]+ ADD NET[/bold]. An empty slot appears.
  - Give it a short label, something like [bold]CMD[/bold] or [bold]ALPHA[/bold]. The label is cosmetic. It is only shown on your own radio and it does not pick the net for you.
  - Select [bold]TUNE[/bold] on that slot.
  - Open the [bold]NET[/bold] tab and pick a named faction net from the list.
  - Select the slot row itself so it becomes the [bold]active[/bold] slot.

  That last step catches people out constantly. Adding a net does not select it. The active slot is the one you actually transmit on, and it is the row that is highlighted.

  Instead of a named net you can enter a raw frequency in the [bold]FREQ[/bold] tab. Frequencies work with or without the decimal point, so [color=#a4885c]1606[/color] and [color=#a4885c]1.606[/color] are the same thing. Use this for tuning to somebody else's net, which is covered in the AN/PRC guide.

  Two more buttons on each slot:

  - [bold]CLEAR[/bold] empties the slot but keeps it and its label.
  - [bold]DEL[/bold] removes the slot entirely.

  ## Step 6: Load your COMSEC fill

  Most faction nets are meant to be encrypted, and the AN/PRC does not carry its own keys. It reads them off a physical card.

  - Find your issued [bold]fill card[/bold] in your kit.
  - Insert it into the radio's fill card slot.
  - Check the COMSEC panel. It should read [bold]SECURED[/bold].

  If you transmit on a secured faction net with no matching fill, the radio warns you and [bold]sends the message anyway, in the clear[/bold]. It does not stop you. Anyone listening on that frequency reads it, and you light up enemy direction finding while you do it.

  Treat a fill warning as a mistake to fix, not a message to click past.

  ## Step 7: Transmit

  With a slot active, transmit through the radio the same way you use a headset, but with [color=#a4885c]:r[/color]:

  [color=#a4885c]:r HAVOC 6, this is ALPHA ROMEO, radio check, over.[/color]

  [color=#a4885c]:r[/color] always goes out on whichever slot is currently active. If you have four nets loaded and speak on the wrong one, that is almost always because you forgot to change the active slot first.

  Your transmission goes out under your callsign. A worn radio follows the wearer's assigned callsign automatically, shown on the panel as [bold]AUTO[/bold]. If you have no callsign assigned you will transmit as [bold]UNKNOWN STATION[/bold], which is worth fixing before anyone needs you.

  ## Step 8: Confirm it actually works

  Do not assume. Select [bold]RADIO CHECK[/bold] on the panel.

  The radio sends [bold]RADIO CHECK, HOW COPY, OVER[/bold] on the active net, then gives you a private report listing which stations hear you clearly and which hear you degraded.

  This is the fastest way to answer "is my net working" without bothering anyone, and you should run it before you move somewhere new and after you set up.

  If you run it while sitting inside enemy jamming, the report also gives you a bearing to the strongest jammer, which is useful intelligence on its own.

  ## The handset: how everyone else uses your radio

  The handset is how someone without radio training talks on a net they do not otherwise have. A squad leader reaching the command net through their Fireteam Leader is the standard case.

  To take it:

  - Stand within about [bold]two and a half tiles[/bold] of the radio or the person wearing it.
  - Make sure you have a [bold]free hand[/bold]. You cannot take it with both hands full.
  - Alt-click the wearer, or the deployed radio.
  - Select [bold]Take Handset[/bold].

  Now read this part carefully, because it surprises people and it has consequences.

  [bold]While you are holding the handset, anything you say out loud goes out on the net.[/bold] You do not need a prefix. Talking normally to the person next to you transmits it to every station on that net.

  To speak without transmitting, [bold]whisper[/bold]. Whispered speech stays off the air.

  The rest of the handset's behaviour:

  - It transmits on the radio's [bold]active slot[/bold], whatever the operator last selected.
  - It uses [bold]your[/bold] callsign, not the radio operator's.
  - Only one person can hold it at a time.
  - Walk out of range and the cord yanks out of your hand and disconnects you.
  - Select [bold]Hang Up Handset[/bold] to return it.

  One exception: if you are wearing your own AN/PRC, holding someone else's handset does not open your mic. Your own pack takes priority and normal [color=#a4885c]:r[/color] discipline applies.

  ## When it does not work

  Work down this list in order. It is roughly ordered by how often each one is the real problem.

  <Table Columns="2" MinForcedColumnWidth="120">
    <ColorBox Color="#263238">
      <Box Margin="4">[bold]Symptom[/bold]</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox Color="#263238">
      <Box Margin="4">[bold]Check[/bold]</Box>
    </ColorBox>

    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">Nobody answers on a squad or command net</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">There is no anchor in range. Find your Fireteam Leader, a mast, or an array. This is the answer most of the time.</Box>
    </ColorBox>

    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">[color=#a4885c]:r[/color] goes out on the wrong net</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">The wrong slot is active. Select the row you want first.</Box>
    </ColorBox>

    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">The panel will not open</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">Your role is not radio trained, or the radio is not in your back slot.</Box>
    </ColorBox>

    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">Traffic arrives broken or full of static</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">You are at the edge of coverage, or you are being jammed. Move closer to the anchor.</Box>
    </ColorBox>

    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">AN/PRC traffic arrives as pure static</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">One of the two radios does not have matching COMSEC fill.</Box>
    </ColorBox>

    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">A net key is missing from your headset</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">Examine it to confirm. You cannot add keys in the field. Use a handset instead.</Box>
    </ColorBox>

    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">You transmit as UNKNOWN STATION</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">You have no callsign assigned. Command can assign one from the net directory.</Box>
    </ColorBox>

    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">You said something private and it went out on the net</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">You are holding a handset. Hang it up, or whisper.</Box>
    </ColorBox>

    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">The radio has gone completely dead</Box>
    </ColorBox>
    <ColorBox>
      <Box Margin="4">Check the battery in its internal slot. Searching and high transmit power drain it quickly.</Box>
    </ColorBox>
  </Table>

  ## Where to go next

  - [textlink="AN/PRC-117G Radio" link="AU14CommsANPRC"] - everything else the manpack does: operating modes, transmit power, retransmission stations, band searching, and intercepting enemy traffic.
  - [textlink="Field Headsets" link="AU14CommsHeadsets"] - direct frequencies, tuning, and headset-specific behaviour.
  - [textlink="Voice Procedure" link="AU14CommsVoiceProcedure"] - how to actually word a transmission so it is understood the first time.
  - [textlink="Comms Quick Reference" link="AU14CommsQuickRef"] - the tables on one page, for when you know what you are doing and just need a number.
</Document>
