The H4855 Personal Role Radio (PRR) is a small UHF transmitter-receiver issued to the British Armed Forces. It is used by the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

Royal Marine The Corps of Royal Marines (RM), also known as the Royal Marines Commandos, are the UK's special operations capable commando force, amphibious light infantry and also one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy. The Corps of Royal Marine ...

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

and the

Royal Air Force Regiment The Royal Air Force Regiment (RAF Regiment) is part of the Royal Air Force and functions as a specialist corps. Founded by royal warrant in 1942, the Corps carries out soldiering tasks relating to the delivery of air power. Examples of such t ...

. The radio has a range of 500 meters, weighs 1.5 kilograms, has 256 different radio channels and a battery life of 20 hours continuous use. It allows users to communicate over short distances. Effective even through thick cover or the walls of buildings, PRR is issued to every member of an eight-strong infantry section. It is manufactured by Marconi-Selenia Communications (then Selenia Communications,

Selex ES Selex ES was a subsidiary of Finmeccanica S.p.A., active in the electronics and information technology business, based in Italy and the UK, and formed in January 2013, following Finmeccanica's decision to combine its existing SELEX Elsag and ...

until 2015, now

Leonardo Leonardo is a masculine given name, the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese equivalent of the English, German, and Dutch name, Leonard Leonard or ''Leo'' is a common English masculine given name and a surname. The given name and surname originate ...

new name of Finmeccanica since 2016). The PRR was originally part of the wider Bowman radio project but was hived off in October 1999 for more rapid implementation, and the first of 45,000 units formally entered service in early 2002. Operating in the 2.4 GHz band, PRR has integrated encryption but does not intercommunicate with the rest of the Bowman network, but is widely acclaimed as having revolutionised intra-squad communications and small-unit tactics. Additional features being the ability to be re-configured in the field with 16 channels available on the selector knob and fifteen other groups of sixteen available with a simple tool. The radio operates on

spread spectrum In telecommunication and radio communication, spread-spectrum techniques are methods by which a signal (e.g., an electrical, electromagnetic, or acoustic signal) generated with a particular bandwidth is deliberately spread in the frequency dom ...

and has a good level of security being designed with LPI (low probability of interception). An inbuilt receiver enables the radio to be keyed remotely via a short range encoded Press To Talk switch fob, the switch being mounted on a weapon or hand grip of a military vehicle. The switch code can be changed in the field and the radio configured to work with up to 4 different switches (useful for soldiers sharing transport such as motor cycles where the PTT switch can be handlebar mounted). The side-mounted switch-pack is supplied with a single Transmit switch for general use and a double switch pack and auxiliary lead and connector to operate a second "Bowman" radio from the same users headset. Multiple security switches and block outs are fitted to prevent re transmission of secure Bowman signals over the personal network.

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* * * British military radio Military radio systems {{radio-comm-stub