If you look at a radar scheme - screen, you see little blip or little dot on the screen. Well, EW, we actually hear what the radar sounds like. Every human being has a fingerprint. Well, every radar has a fingerprint. It has different numbers or parameters, so those parameters, we take those four or five dozen numbers and then we link that to a radar and that's what we call a contact basically.

The radar is going to shoot out a beam. It's going to shoot out a signal just like your TV station. It sends out a signal, the antenna picks it up and it shoots down into your cable and through the TV. Well, the radar is going to send out that same - not the same signal, but it's going to send out a signal. That signal's going to hit our antenna, comes through our electronic gear, gets processed and is displayed in numbers. We take those numbers, translate it into an elite notation, which is basic identification number. We take that identification number and say, okay, for example, this is the Volkswagen radar, and that's how we determine what that radar is capable of doing. [That radar fire control, surface search, air search and so forth. Missile guidance. That's how that works.

The electromagnetic spectrum plays a very, very large part of EW. All of your radio frequency signals are found in that spectrum, the location depending on the frequency. The higher the frequency or the lower the frequency is going to determine whether it's going to be a threat or a friendly contact. The higher the frequency, the smaller the platform. You can't have a missile with a very low frequency because it's going to be impossible to fly that missile. So when you take your higher frequency signals, those are going to be found on your smaller platforms which is your aircraft and your missiles and your fire-control radar. That's where all of your threats are going to be, so you have to know how radio frequency works.

Aircraft missiles, fire-control radar, those are high priority platforms. That's the main focus we want to look at. Those are called high priority platforms because that's where your - all of your threat's going to be. You're not going to pay attention to a low frequency surface search radar because that's going to be, you know, your merchant ships. No threat to me whatsoever. But once you get into that higher frequency range, aircraft, like I said before, fire control, missile guidance missile, any type of high frequency signal, those are going to be your threat platforms because a merchant vessel is not going to be a threat. If he's swimming by us, what can he do to us? Nothing. But when you have your aircraft flying through, they can drop bombs, they can shoot missiles at us, use their guns or so forth. That's why we label that high priority platform. A platform is a boat, a ship - any contact basically is a platform.

The [EM] spectrum is critical. You have to know it. If you don't, you're going to be lost and you're going to pass some - some false information to the guys that are above you that are actually doing the shooting and stuff like, so you have to know what you're talking about. If you say something wrong and these guys put their trust in you, you know, so you have to know what - you have to be on the money every time.