by Dan Robinson
The explosions/detonations of HT radios targeting the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon continue to make headlines, with latest reports digging into the origins of the units and containing reaction from ICOM. This story is one of those rare occasions when the radio manufacturing industry is thrust into the spotlight.
Reuters reported that:
“The lethal hack of Hezbollah’s Asian-branded pagers and walkie-talkies has sparked an intense search for the devices’ path, revealing a murky market for older technologies where buyers may have few assurances about what they are getting. While supply chains and distribution channels for higher-margin and newer products are tightly managed, that’s not the case for older electronics from Asia where counterfeiting, surplus inventories and complex contract manufacturing deals can sometimes make it impossible to identify the source of a product, analysts and consultants say.”
The Reuters report also noted:
“For Icom, one problem is that it stopped making the IC-V82 model in question a decade ago, around the time it started introducing holographic stickers as a protection against counterfeit products, the company said. The company has long warned about imitation products, especially of its older models. In fact, more than 7% of firms in Japan reported business losses from counterfeit products in 2020, according to the latest available report by the Japan Patent Office, with around a third of cases linked to China. Icom has urged that customers only use its official distributor network to ensure they are buying genuine products.”
This earlier Reuters report was published in The Jerusalem Post.
Other reports were by Kyodo (see: https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/09/9d7c5ea04e62-exploding-walkie-talkies-in-lebanon-may-be-product-of-japanese-firm.html, Bloomberg (appearing on the TIME website (https://time.com/7022598/lebanon-walkie-talkies-explosion-japan-icom/) and BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz04m913m49o).
Another report, which quotes Ray Novak, ICOM U.S. representative, appeared in The Washington Post. It said ICOM was “[investigating the allegations, but early signs pointed to the walkie-talkies being counterfeit]”. ICOM had issued three statements on its website as of mid-September 20th.
Funny thing is there is no need for these companies to react or even say anything.
You don’t see Toyota or Nissian responding because these groups use their pick up trucks.
I wonder if any of the modified radios will end up on Ebay? Looks to be good sense to stay away from this ICOM model now and into the future.
They might not necessarily be counterfeit, I’m sure mossad has the capability to buy boxes of NOS and modify them.
Another bad sign for the Middle East (and by proxy the US). Would have been more helpful if Putin was the victim. I wonder if this will spell the end to the HF numbers stations if the receivers used by the assets could be modified. However in the current example…..this was a long planned and time consuming action.
Are there any 2 meter repeaters in that area that are active ?
The grey market for communications equipment is very big and very opaque. Until this attack, the worst that could happen if you bought grey market stuff is that it wouldn’t work as you might have expected.
But this is different. Perhaps now the market will support a bit more transparency.