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Army National Guardsmen are called to support their local communities for a myriad of efforts, from firefighting and emergency rescues to mutual-aid response at the border. 

In the majority of these domestic missions, the Army National Guard (ARNG) works in tandem with state and municipal first-responders operating on Project 25 (P25) networks.

With 52 Army Aviation Support Facilities (AASF) across the United States, interoperability with public safety users is an important requirement for the ARNG – and a niche need not shared with the majority of active-duty forces.

“Guard units might encounter a wide array of requests from multiple agencies on any given day – in Vail, Colorado, they might perform Search and Rescue missions at local ski resorts; in Arizona, they might be firefighting one day and supporting Border Control efforts the next,” according to Bill Seiss, Director, U.S. Army Tactical Communications programs, ɫ��ֱ��. “Previously, the Guard would use commercial radios to connect with P25 networks. Our Falcon IV radios, however, have a built-in gateway capability to seamlessly tie multiple networks – military or commercial – together in a unified ecosystem.”

Four years ago, several members of New Mexico’s National Guard learned that the P25 Trunking waveform could operate through ɫ��ֱ�� AN/PRC-167s, meeting a critical interoperability need for mutual-aid support operations. This led to a collaborative effort to provide two-channel systems that can unify Army tactical communications suites and P25 for converged, interoperable connectivity with state and local emergency personnel. 

The Guard can also incorporate their fleet of UH-60M and H Black Hawks and CH-47 Chinooks into the program, to act similar to the Army’s HMS and Air-to-Ground Network Radio programs and provide multi-domain resilient interoperability.

“The Guard asked for two things: the first was AN/PRC-167s with P25 Trunking, which is a pretty standard catalog item – they just need different antennas and a waveform license,” Seiss said. “The second was handheld AN/PRC-163s to give them a mobile capability for air traffic control operations when aircraft come in and out of respective AASFs.”

The program provides cost-effective synergies now that the Guard is using – and requiring maintenance for – the same equipment active-duty forces do, according to Seiss.

The Army National Guard officially awarded ɫ��ֱ�� a contract for AN/PRC-167 sets in December 2024. This follows a series of ARNG custom support programs the company has supported over the last decade.