DHS completes jamming exercise to strengthen first responder communications

During the last week in April, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) hosted the JamX 22 exercise to further resilience to signal jamming threats for federal and first responders.

The exercise at the White Sands Missile range brought together federal, state, local, and industry participants to build on lessons learned from past JamX exercises in 2016 and 2017, as well as allow S&T and CISA to educate on research, technology developments, and new training to counter electronic jamming.

“S&T and CISA are working to give first responders and federal law enforcement the tools they need to defend against jamming. We know that a critical element of protecting our homeland is securing our communities, including helping all levels of responders prepare to mitigate potential jamming incidents,” said Kathryn Coulter Mitchell, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Under Secretary for Science & Technology. “JamX 22 is a critical step toward nationwide communications resilience, bringing together a diverse group of participants with unique operational experiences to inform future research, development, and training.”

The event was separated into two parts – Operation Trinity: an exercise with federal and first responder operations and technical personnel that assessed Resilient Communications Training effectiveness; and Project Resilience: an experiment with industry and federal partners to test tools and technologies that can identify, locate and mitigate spectrum interference, as well as to measure the impact of interference on federal and public safety communications networks.

“In a jamming environment, an emergency response or law enforcement mission may be compromised by the lack or unreliability of communications, and they may not realize there is a problem,” said Billy Bob Brown, Jr., Executive Assistant Director for Emergency Communications at CISA. “Educating operators regarding jamming and ensuring they know what to do is essential to keeping responders and our communities safe. By training them in resilient communications best practices, we’ve immediately raised the bar of preparedness not just for them, but for the communities they protect and serve.”

More than 200 participants from Massachusetts, North Carolina, the District of Columbia, Florida, New Mexico, Indiana, Kansas, Arizona, and California participated in the event, as well as representatives of federal agencies including the Coast Guard, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, Sandia National Labs; and industry participants including Motorola, Anritsu/Ravenswood, CACI, Epiq Solutions, PCTEL, Rhode & Schwarz, SOC/Cell Antenna and SOC/LS Telcom, Syncopated Systems, TMC/Linquet.