Communications

The Civil Air Patrol operates one of the largest communications systems in the country with more than 6,000 fixed land stations and more than 10,000 land and airmobile radios operated by over 20,000 trained communicators. This system consists of voice and automatic digital communications capabilities on long and short circuit paths. Hundreds of individual networks are linked together to form a highly flexible and survivable nationwide traffic handling system.

The CAP National Digital Radio Network has drawn particular interest from other organizations such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency which has joined the network and included it in their emergency communications planning.

The NDRN consists of more than 2,000 computer based radio stations which take advantage of leading edge technology to automatically establish links as necessary and pass error-free message traffic throughout the system.

Because the system doesn't rely on telephone lines, it is highly survivable in the event of natural or man-made disasters and also because of its radio-based architecture it is extremely flexible allowing end-users to "plug" into the system from anywhere within radio range of one of the 500-plus system nodes across the country.