Vigilance in the Field: A Sneak Peak at the Upcoming TinySA Ultra Case Gen2 from Vigilante Engineering, by GuerrillaLogistician

EDITORS NOTE: This product is NOT available yet in the Brushbeater Store, but be sure to keep an eye on the store as well as future announcements by Vigilante Engineering on their Twitter page. There are exciting things in the works!

Ref – 3E

Jim opened his Wendigo works chest rig, which allowed the paracord strings to hold the pouch at a nice 45° angle. He looked at his Tiny SA Ultra as his small team was drinking water and taking a tactical pause to listen. This was his 4th time out in the field, and he’d gotten used to the patterns of life in the electronic warfare spectrum. He didn’t see any signs of drones operating around him, but he did see something slightly unusual around the 2 meter band. His Tiny SA was housed in a durable case with a red lens screen protector covering the display.  The dim red light from the screen barely illuminated his face, which had been expertly camouflaged with face paint earlier that day. Pushing the little dial over, he moved the trace onto the location of where the signal had been, noting the general frequency. As he was doing this, another signal from the exact location was transmitted again. Yanking his radio out, he quickly punched in the frequency with his DM-F8, adjusting the frequency until he heard something on the H-250 hand mic he had strapped close to his ear.  Only digital static came in through the hand mic, but he waved over to his patrol leader, who quickly moved next to him.

“What do you have, Jim?” Mike asked as he kneeled next to Jim, moving his rifle over to the side and out of the way.

“I don’t know, boss, but somebody is sending out brief communications, and I think with the length of it, it’s probably digital voice,” Jim replied.

“Have you heard a reply yet?”, mike asked as he looked over Jim’s shoulder at the red hued screen.

“No not yet that’s why I haven’t focused down on that frequency, but with the amount of power I’m getting off of this antenna I’m assuming they’re closer than we want them to be”, Jim replied.

“Alright we’re gonna hold here for a second keep me posted if anything develops”, Mike said as he stood up and started moving around his small team letting him know that they were going to hold for a little bit longer and what was going on.

Jim watched his screen intently. He pulled out the little stylist from the side of the hardened case and slowly slid up the red lens cover that prevented a lot of the light from exposing their position. As he covered his rig with a small sheet that allowed him to see the screen yet blocked out most of the excess light, he watched intently. He also pulled out a VE Yagi antenna and set it up on his DM-F8 readying himself for direction finding. Several minutes later, a new signal appeared, this time in the 70-centimeter band, and he quickly adjusted for this as well. Within seconds, several bars of signal fell down the waterfall. He quickly punched in the frequencies he found on the tiny SA ultra while using the stylist to focus on that specific band. Within moments, he had a good idea that this was the same digital sound that he had heard earlier, but he had only moved to a different band.  With practice from a training course he had taken since everything went nuts, he could identify the distinct pattern of P-25.  In moments, he pulled out his collapsible yagi antenna and started to identify the communications directionally. With the longer conversations going on through voice, it was easy to get a quick bearing and mark on the ground with a stick where he heard both signals. As he was doing this, Mike came back over to him, watching as Jim worked his limited electronic capabilities to figure out what was going on. Even though he didn’t have a Kraken with him, it was quickly apparent from not only the RF intensity he was getting on his tiny SA ultra but also the direction of the signal that there were two teams out here maneuvering even though they were the only ones that were supposed to be out here right now.  Jim’s blood ran cold as he realized that the signal was getting stronger out of his display, and the bearing had shifted quite noticeably.

Whispering into Mike’s ear, “They have to be extremely close to the signal I’m getting, and they are moving right past us.”

Without saying a word and only using hand signals, Mike got everybody in the prone position and then maneuvered them for a hasty ambush as Jim continued to track the movements and signals of the aggressor forces. With everyone’s heart racing and the potential threat getting closer, nerves were on edge. Everyone had trained for this, and with Mike’s basic knowledge of ambushes and Jim’s capabilities with electronics, they had set themselves up to possibly catch the enemy unaware. Even if their SOP was not to be seen, if the enemy was going to come across them, they were going to have a very wicked surprise.

If your pets are interested then you know this is a good product.

Vigilante Engineering

I had talked to VE a bit several months ago. Unfortunately, I’ve been traveling and really hadn’t gotten into grabbing his product or handling it in person. Smartly, he actually got these out to other people who are well and truly more popular than me. This guy had set up a case that held your tiny SA ultra in a bolted-together case that helped prevent it from taking damage and also gave you a good way to clip it onto gear. This made it a lot more viable in the field. Much like Wendigo works, VE is very responsive to what the community wants and needs. One thing that you will notice when you are out in the field with any electronic equipment is that light discipline is extremely difficult. You’ll catch this in the scout class and reece class quite often, with people throwing poncho liners over their heads to deal with the electronics on hand. Others keep these items stuffed in pouches away from visibility and only use them in limited interactions. His original design did not have any way to block the screen or protect it from the elements as well as some of us would have liked. This isn’t to knock the original concept, which, if you own one of these, you’ll realize how valuable they are in the first place. I know two people who’ve ordered this and absolutely loved the Gen. 1 version. A good bit of attention to detail has gone into this product, not only to allow you to run larger adapters for BNC connectors but also where the holes for access to the switches and power ports come into play.  With all the feedback, I think VE has really gotten to a place, where many of you may want to look at this again if you weren’t sold in the first place.

Not only does he build a strong case for the protection of the equipment, but he has also looked at screen protection and light discipline. We had originally discussed possibly having a flip-open lid so you could seal this thing away from light, but I like what he did better. Most of the time, I carry this thing, but I don’t have it in an open configuration facing me 24/7. Also, many people I’ve talked to don’t do that either. It is something that they use either at a pre-designated time, such as every 15 minutes, or they use it in conjunction with their radios on the scan. While I will tell you never to separate your antenna from a radio, this device really works well with the jumper cable, allowing you to separate this and your radio while giving you enough cable to actually pull it out and look at it. The nice thing is that with such a large spectrum of reception and how the tiny SA works, this isn’t a real problem for it, even though it is best to have the antenna for the band you wish to focus on.

Installation is extremely simple. All you have to do is pull 4 screws out, pull off the top cover, and make sure you don’t have any of your accessory plugs attached. Then you simply slide the device in with the RF and calibration connectors to the one side. You will notice conveniently there are two cutouts for your on and off switch and the control dial. Once seated in firmly this device is going nowhere. Then you put your 4 screws back in, tighten them down, and you’re basically good to go.

As you can see from the images, the side accessibility is pretty good. Not to mention they give you enough space to plug in your USB C cable in case you want constant charge on your device. Along with that, he is engineered in a spot that snugly holds your stylus as well, which is a pretty neat feature that I’m not sure was on the other one. Nothing sucks more than being in the field, having cold hands, and trying to use one of these screens, which isn’t very conducive to fat fingers or cold fingers. I almost feel like a stylist is necessary for this device and I think VE smartly installed this.

As you can see, the major improvement is the screen with the red-hued lens cover. By no means is this indestructible, and you could damage it, but the reality is this little slide-up protector will not only keep rain off of your screen but also dampen your light exposure. I think this is a phenomenal product and highly recommend you guys look into this when it comes out on the market. I’m not saying he won’t add a few more features to it or change some things before then, so if you see anything you like or dislike or want to improve, let him know. In theory, he could also have this screen totally blacked out so you can’t see through it until you open it up. I’m not sure which feature the community would like more because, obviously, this can go in a chest rig like the one I’m showing in the images above. If you wish to contact him, I will put his information below. I love how both VE and Wendigo Works adapt things on the fly from customer feedback, which is something you don’t see rarely. The nice thing is although it takes time to develop a 3D print, VE can modify and tweak his design as new concepts arise, making this a better product each time.

Last but not least, I want to plug one other thing he is working on. I will say this right now: generally speaking, I think this is a good concept, but I think so many people have made designs for this that I generally ignore these products. I even said that I don’t think there’s a lot of money in these, although I think they’re very handy. That is the AR-152 volume knob guard. I will add two things about this that are unique to VE and not other similar products on the market. First, the form factor and installation are extremely easy and don’t require you to do an insane amount of cobbling together or bolting like some other products I’ve seen. One thing you should be able to do is be able to remove your volume knob before installation. If you’ve already glued that in place, this product probably isn’t for you. However, he took into consideration the pouch that was sold by Joe Dolio and Brushbeater, making it compatible with both.  It is an extremely small and nonobtrusive design that covers that stupid ass light they put on every one of these radios. If you are new to radios and you have an AR-152, this is something that I would purchase instead of taping over your light and also having to buy some weird widget to protect your volume knob. I have to commend VE for listening to the people and what they wanted while also improving on previous designs to make them more effective in the field. I strongly advise people to look at this guy’s products and pay attention to his X account.

If you need a radio pouch check here.

https://brushbeater.store/products/ar-152-radio-pouch

https://brushbeater.store/products/wendigo-works-radio-pouch

If you have come this far VE also had been talking about making a yagi antenna so if you are interested hit him up with the info below

wendigoworks.com  @wendigo_works

If you wish to contact VE with ideas, comments, or concerns: [email protected] or @VIGILANTEENG on X