Communications, Radar & Electronic Warfare (201.. - Index of

324 CommUI11Catlons, Radar and Eleclrol11c Warfarevehicle mounted communications, antennas and associated systems must be lightweightand low power.UAV s pose particular challenges for spectrum management. Their communicationschannels must be well protected from friendly, enemy and other sources. There may bea requirement for multiple channels to be assigned to allow for backup channels if theprimary ones are blocked. In addition, the UAV controllers may need a number of otherchannels to allow them to talk to other air users and for the different phases of theoperation, including launch and recovery. They may also need to have communicationswith ground forces if the operation is in support of ground operations. This meansthat a single UAV mission may tie up lots of spectrum and as one of the advantages ofUAVs is their flexibility, this may be required at short notice. The spectrum may berequired at short notice and also released quickly once the mission is completed. Thisrequires dynamic spectrum management - something that is emerging rather thanbeing commonplace at present.17.6 Countering Enemy Communications Electronic Warfare17.6.1 Poacher-Gamekeeper ApproachPart of a gamekeeper's job is to protect the animals on their land from poachers intenton stealing those animals. The very best gamekeepers are those who really understandhow poachers work; often this is because they have been poachers themselves. This issomething that is also true of communications electronics warfare. The better anunderstanding of how radio systems work and how operators use those systems an EWoperator has, the better they will be able to exploit technical and operationalvulnerabilities. The better communications operators understand EW systems andhow EW operators work, the better they will be able to protect against enemy EWaction. To promote this, EW operator readers are recommended to read widely aboutradio communications, and radio operator readers are likewise recommended to readwidely about EW.17.6.2 EPMOne of the most important methods of countering enemy EW action is to preventthem ever knowing that they know your systems are there in the first place. Powermanagement comes in. If you are not transmitting, it is impossible for the enemy todetect or intercept you. Obviously, this is not always possible, but minimisingtransmissions is important. Naval ships and aircraft often travel in electronicsilence or use other methods described in the next section. They only stmi totransmit when they absolutely need to do so, to perform operations or to activatedefence systems. In all systems, the use of minimum power for communications isalso normally employed.