The ability to establish communications links, whilst minimising interception, jamming and direction finding, is of paramount importance in many military missions. Further, in electronic warfare it is important to deploy and use interception, jamming and direction finding assets effectively. The Jamming and Interception Vulnerability Estimator (JIVE) is a tactical, high frequency (HF), communications decision aid that has been developed to enhance communications electronic protection measures (EPM) and electronic counter measures (ECM).

JIVE combines expert knowledge of the ionosphere, ray-tracing and communications systems, to aid HF systems operators and managers. Using near real-time environmental data and systems characteristics, JIVE predicts and then advises on optimal HF communications parameters. These include the operational frequency, power, transmitter and receiver locations to optimise EPM or ECM.

JIVE provides coverage maps for sky and ground wave propagation based on point-to-point calculations centred on the transmitter. These enable operators to determine signal vulnerability and ECM effectiveness.

JIVE also makes a vulnerability assessment based on maximum usable frequency (MUF) or lowest usable frequency (LUF)presenting the result as a colour coded table covering 24 hours.

Applications

• HF communications assessment prior to deployment
• frequency management to minimise signal interception by the enemy
• frequency management to maximise jamming of enemy systems
• HF communications training aid