The U.S. Armed Services can use the SINCGARS radio system with confidence, according to an official with the Army’s Communications-Electronics Command at Fort Monmouth, N.J.

James Bowden, project leader for the single-channel, ground and airborne radio system, said 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. Bowden added that some in the U.S. Arrmed Services have expressed the fear that Hezbollah or Iran has shared this technology with extremists in Iraq.

But, according to Bowden, the articles are wrong. He said that 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, nor does it use the U.S. communications security devices and it does not use the U.S. transmission security devices. According to Bowden, it is these three features, in combination, that provide the robust protection for U.S. SINCGARS.

Those three pieces of the SINCGARS provide service members with assured communications security when they follow proper communications procedures. Bowden concluded that service members deploying to Iraq should take all normal precautions, but they do not need to distrust their communications. He has been working with the SINCGARS program since the 1980s.

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