On May 7, signalmen and specialists of the radio technical service (RTS) of the Russian Navy celebrate their professional holiday. This holiday was first celebrated in Russia in 1996, after the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy established by his order a list of holidays and professional days for the Russian Navy. It is symbolic that the seamen-signalmen and specialists of the RTS of the navy celebrate their holiday on Radio Day, which is celebrated annually on May 7 by workers of all branches of communications.
The beginning of the training of radio specialists for the Russian fleet can be attributed to 1900, in many respects it was associated with the activities of the famous Russian scientist-inventor A. S. Popov. Already in those years, the task of not only equipping ships with communication means on a mass scale began to appear, but also a natural need arose to train personnel in the combat use of new communication equipment, their correct operation and repair. At the direction of the Main Naval Staff of Russia, the first two-week courses in wireless telegraphy appeared in Kronstadt under the Mine officer class. The training program for these courses, which included lectures and practical exercises, was drawn up personally by A. S. Popov.
The chief commander of the Kronstadt port, Vice-Admiral S. O. Makarov, greatly helped Popov not only in the production of the first Russian models of radio equipment and equipping them for warships, but also in the training of specialists for the fleet. The name of this person is also associated with the improvement of the tactics of using radio communications, as well as the birth of radio intelligence, radio direction finding and radio interception in our country. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 fully confirmed the need for radio communications in the fleet, showing that one of the reasons for the defeat of the Russian fleet was the lack of a full-fledged organization of combat control of ships. It is no coincidence that already at the end of 1907, the Regulations on the radiotelegraph part were introduced in the Naval Department, and in 1909 a Communication Service was created in Russia, which was able to effectively ensure the control of the forces of the fleet. This was confirmed by the events of the First World War.
At that time, telegraph operators for the Baltic Fleet, the Amur and Siberian flotillas were trained by the Kronstadt Mine School, and for the Black Sea Fleet - by the Sevastopol. The first independent educational institution in the Russian Navy designed for training radio specialists - the Radio Engineering School was opened in the fall of 1916 on the White Sea. By the time the revolution began, the school had managed to train only 48 radiotelegraph operators both for the ships of the Arctic Ocean and for the coastal service. During the Civil War in Russia, the training of radio technical specialists of all levels for the needs of the fleet was almost completely curtailed.
With the end of the civil war and the revival of the navy, now the USSR, training of rank-and-file radio communications specialists began in the country again. In 1921-1922, they were trained in the Baltic Fleet's Mine-Training Squad in Kronstadt, which in 1922 was renamed the Electromine School, as well as at the Second Joint School of the Black Sea Fleet's Training Squad, located in Sevastopol. For the achievements and merits in training radio specialists for the needs of the Soviet fleet, the Kronstadt Electromine School in 1925 was named after the famous Russian physicist, electrical engineer, inventor Alexander Stepanovich Popov. In 1937, this school stopped training specialists in mine engineering, switching to training exclusively radio specialists of various profiles for all flotillas and fleets of the Soviet Union.
Many graduates of this school bravely passed all the tests of the Great Patriotic War, fighting with the enemy in the Baltic and Black Sea fleets, keeping watch on ships that were met by allied caravans in the Barents Sea. During the war years, the Far East, which was removed from the theater of military operations, became the center for training junior specialists in the radio technical service. The School of Communications of the Pacific Fleet was established here, which trained signalmen for the needs of all operating fleets and flotillas of the Soviet Union.
The main tasks of the radio technical service of the Navy are the organization and management of the system of lighting the situation in the fleet and the implementation of measures for its development, the preparation of proposals for improving the information support of the processes of controlling the forces of the fleet, creating and ensuring the smooth operation of a unified state lighting system for the surface and underwater situation (EGSSNPO). The radio technical service of the Russian Navy also performs other tasks that are provided for by regulatory acts of the Russian Federation, decrees and orders of the President of the Russian Federation, directives and orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the RF Armed Forces, directives and orders of the RF Minister of Defense, directives of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, as well as orders and directives of the main the command of the navy.
The role of communications can hardly be overestimated in modern armed forces, especially in the navy, where the success of the assigned combat mission can very often depend on how accurately and promptly the exchange of necessary information is carried out. Moreover, the distances between ships in the open ocean can be thousands of miles. The coherence of actions of any combination of warships is largely ensured precisely due to the presence of stable communications and the reliability of the operation of the sophisticated radio equipment installed on modern warships. The particular importance of the role of communications and radio-technical equipment in the modern world is also emphasized by the fact that one of the tasks of this and other services of the navy today is to protect their own radio-technical systems and channels from outside influences, as well as simultaneous efforts aimed at disrupting the uninterrupted the operation of similar systems for a potential adversary. In order to improve the activities of the radio engineering service of the Russian Navy, it regularly conducts training sessions and exercises of existing radio engineering units.
Until 2010, a higher military educational institution was located in Peterhof (Leningrad Region), which trained specialists in radio electronics for the needs of the Russian Navy - the AS Popov Higher Naval School of Radio Electronics. This higher educational institution became the first independent military university in our country, which trains highly qualified specialists in communications and radio engineering for the Russian fleet. On July 1, 2012, after the merger of the Naval Engineering Institute with the A. S. Popov Naval Institute of Radio Electronics, the Naval Polytechnic Institute was formed, the buildings of which are located in Peterhof and Pushkin.
On this day, "Voennoye Obozreniye" congratulates all communications and radio technical services (RTS) specialists of the Soviet and Russian Navy. Everyone who was once associated with these specialties and those who still serve in the Russian navy today.
