[MilCom] SINCGARS Radios

[Frank Cardenas]

Recent media articles have claimed that Hezbollah had employed
advanced technology to crack Israeli communications during the
fighting in Lebanon.

Based upon a story released by the Armed Forces Press Service, the
articles have alleged that the Hezbollah used technology from Iran to
thwart Israeli tank attacks. Some in the U.S. Arrmed Services have
expressed the fear that Hezbollah or Iran has shared this technology
with extremists in Iraq.

But, the articles are wrong. The Israelis do not use the U.S. SINCGARS
system, but instead another frequency-hopping technology. Frequency
hopping means messages switch among dozens of frequencies each second
to evade being jammed or intercepted.

Israel's frequency-hopping radio does not have the U.S.
frequency-hopping algorithm, and it does not use the U.S. transmission
security devices.  It is these  features, in combination, that provide
the robust protection for U.S. SINCGARS.

Those pieces of the SINCGARS provide service members with assured
communications security when they follow proper communications
procedures.