PART A. - PREVENTIVE MEASURES
1.
Preventive Electronic Counter-Countermeasures. The two major areas of
preventive ECCM are systems design and operational techniques.
The enemy
tries to gain information about an opposing force through electronic
surveillance. He uses direction-finding receivers to pinpoint the locations
of radar, radio transmitters, and other devices that produce electromagnetic
signatures.
We thwart enemy electronic warfare (EW) efforts by taking
preventive measures.
a. Systems design includes ECCM-designed circuits.
Most military
radios have unique design features incorporated into their circuitry.
A
radio operator cannot normally control the effectiveness of design features.
Examples include:
(1) A radio's
low
power
setting.
Lower
output
power
reduces
transmission range.
(2) Secure voice equipment, such as VINSON.
This provides electronic
signal encryption.
(3) Automatic power adjustments. These limit the radiated power to a
level sufficient for effective communications.
They reduce a radio's
electronic signature. This feature is used in mobile subscriber equipment.
Specifically, the radio access unit and the mobile subscriber radiotelephone
terminal use it.
(4) Frequency hopping.
This is very effective in reducing the
effects of enemy jamming.
It is also effective in denying the enemy
information about your location.
The Single-Channel Ground and Airborne
Radio System (SINCGARS) radios employ frequency hopping.
(5) The spread spectrum technique.
This suppresses interference by
other frequency users (friendly and enemy).
It provides multiple access
(user sharing) and ends multipath interference (self jamming).
This
technique spreads signals across a very wide frequency band of the operating
spectrum, causing the transmitted signal to be hard to distinguish from
normal levels.
The Enhanced Position Location Reporting System and the
Joint Tactical Information Distribution System uses it.
b. Operational techniques provide methods for preventing an enemy from
detecting friendly communications.
(1) Site selection, radiated power, and antenna selection are the
most important considerations in radio system installation.
They are
usually under a degree of friendly control.
(a) Place an antenna to allow the terrain to mask it from the
enemy. Masking an antenna from an enemy normally only reduces the signal's
range in the enemy's direction.
SS0135
2-2
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