NATO is in the midst of implementing the alliance's new SATURN waveform, which promises a step change in communications capabilities for air platforms.Among the Roman gods, Saturn had his hands full, responsible as he was for wealth, liberation, agriculture, generation and renewal, among other tasks. His name was given to the second largest planet in our Solar Systems - and NATO's Second-Generation Anti-Jam Tactical Ultra High Frequency Radio. Unsurprisingly, this rather fulsome title has been abbreviated to SATURN; a more concise way of describing this alliance tactical communications waveform. Using a UHF waveband of 225-400MHz, the waveform was designed from the outset to be resistant to electronic attack (EA). SATURN picks up from where NATO's HAVEQUICK-I/II UHF waveform left off. HAVEQUICK-I/II remains in service, but over the long term may be superseded by SATURN. To understand the benefits that SATURN will bring to NATO, it is worth reflecting briefly on history. Since the end of the Second World War, military aircraft have used the 225-400MHz waveband for air-to-air and air-to-ground/ground-to-air radio communications, exclusively for global military use, with this guarantee underwritten by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) - the supranational United Nations organisation which acts as global custodian of the radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. From the earliest days, use of UHF for such communications purposes during the Second World War was primarily conducted using either voice or Morse Code transmissions. This traffic was 'clear' i.e. bereft of any transmission security, which might help to prevent unauthorised listeners from eavesdropping on the traffic. Those using these communications could only protect the traffic with rudimentary encryption such as specific code words, the meaning of which the eavesdropper would not be privy to. The proliferation of consumer and low-priced commercial electronics from the 1960s, resulting from the mass use of the microchip, led to the proliferation of inexpensive radio scanners capable of picking up military UHF radio transmissions within range of the scanner. Not only would someone be able to hear these communications - they could potentially attack them with jamming after ascertaining the frequency in use. From a tactical and operational perspective, the dangers this posed were obvious - something had to be done. That something was the advent of frequency-hopping radio waveforms. This approach made it impossible to hear military communications in 'clear' on a single channel, transmitting on an unchanged frequency, thus making the communications impossible to jam.
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