Harris wins potential $1.7 billion radio contract (finally) for Afghanistan and other countries
ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md., 23 June 2016. U.S. Army radio communications specialists finalized a potential $1.7 billion contract with Harris Corp. on Wednesday to provide military radio equipment to Afghanistan and other U.S. allies under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program.
The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract with the Harris RF Communications segment in Rochester, N.Y., will involve virtually everything in the Harris RF communications inventory -- primarily the Falcon III radio family, company officials say.
The contract comes from the Army Contracting Command, on behalf of the Army Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. The Army prematurely had announced this contract last Friday, retracted the announcement on Monday, and announced the final contract on Wednesday.
Under the contract, Harris will supply a wide range of secure radio communications, tactical communication networks and embedded high-grade encryption solutions spanning the Harris entire tactical communications offerings, company officials say. The contract also involves ancillaries, spare parts, and services.
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More than 700,000 soldiers worldwide use the Harris Falcon family of military software-defined radios, which interoperate with a wide range of legacy systems and waveforms, and offer high-speed, high-bandwidth voice, data, imagery, and video communications.
The Harris Falcon family of radios includes the AN/PRC-158 multi-channel manpack; Harris Airborne Multi-Channel Radio (HAMR); AN/ARC-201E export SINCGARS airborne radio; AN/PRC-117G(V)1(C) multiband networking manpack radio; and the AN/PRC-152A wideband networking handheld radio.
The Falcon radio family also includes the AN/PRC-159(V)1 wideband team radio; RF-7800H-MP wideband HF/VHF tactical radio system; RF-7800M-HH wideband networking handheld radio; RF-7800M-MP multiband networking manpack radio (MNBR); RF-7800S SPR team radio secure personal team radio; RF-7800V-HH handheld VHF tactical radio; RF-7800W multimission HCLOS radio; and the RF-7850A-MR multi-channel airborne networking radio.
Other Falcon radios include the RF-7850A-UA unmanned aircraft networking radio; RF-7850M-HH multiband networking handheld; RF-7850S SPR advanced wideband secure personal radio; Falcon II AN/PRC-150(C) high frequency manpack radio; Falcon II RF-5800H-MP HF/VHF manpack radio; Falcon II RF-5800M-HH multiband handheld radio; and RF-7800T-HH situational awareness video receiver (SAVR).
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In addition to handheld, vehicular, and manpack radios, the contract to Harris also includes radio ancillaries such as rugged networking devices, video processors, encryption, and antennas.
The Harris secure tactical communications equipment involved in the contract will promote coalition cooperation and interoperability, Harris officials say.
On this contract Harris will do the work in locations as necessary with each order, and should be finished by June 2021. For more information contact Harris Corp. online at www.harris.com, or Army CECOM at www.army.mil/cecom.
