Managing the frequency resource today and tomorrow

Frequency-resource management is the judicious use of the electromagnetic spectrum to accomplish the mission or objective of the user with little or no impact on other users of the spectrum. One mission of military frequency management is to support command and control (C2), which is crucial to executing the operational plans of the commanders. Effective C2 is impossible without communications and successful communications cannot be achieved without proper frequency management. This paper does not discuss frequency-management tools in use today, but focuses on factors that must be considered to achieve proper frequency management. The army of the future must consider not just each radio, but the system into which the radio must fit. "System" refers not to the system of passing messages through a network, but of several radios in proximity, e.g., in mobile command posts (CPs). In such situations, radios designed for individual operations must work in a very dense cosite situation with other types of radios and other equipment such as computers, with radios in several bands together, and radios of various bandwidths.<>