High Frequency in the High North
egular Armada readers will be aware of our deep interest in Russian military radar, electronic warfare and communications systems. Our fascination with these capabilities is enabled in no small measure by the work of EW Analytics LLC. Based in the United States, the company uses publicly available information to produce highly respected analysis of Russian military electromagnetic capabilities. EW Analytics LLC regularly shares its analysis, which we summarise for our readers, and you can find some previous examples of our summaries here.
The company shared its recent analysis of two High Frequency (HF: three megahertz/MHz to 30MHz) antenna arrays located in Russia’s Arctic region. The Russian military has an Arctic Trefoil installation in the Franz Josef archipelago in the north of the region. Arctic Trefoil installations follow a similar design, ‘Trefoil’ being a reference to the installation’s three-wing building design. Next to the installation are two fenced fields each covering an area of one square kilometre (0.38 square miles). Each field contains an antenna array that EW Analytics LLC has discovered is connected to RPDRUM-1/5 HF radios, the antenna array of interest being referred to as Vh-60/12 in Russian.