Radio silence

This article is about radio communications. For other uses, see Radio silence (disambiguation).

In telecommunications, radio silence or Emissions Control (EMCON) is a status in which all fixed or mobile radio stations in an area are asked to stop transmitting for safety or security reasons.

The term "radio station" may include anything capable of transmitting a radio signal. A single ship, aircraft, spacecraft, or group of them may also maintain radio silence.

Military

An order for Radio silence is generally issued by the military where any radio transmission may reveal troop positions, either audibly from the sound of talking, or by radio direction finding. In extreme scenarios Electronic Silence ('Emissions Control' or EMCON) may also be put into place as a defence against interception.

In the British Army, the imposition and lifting of radio silence will be given in orders or ordered by control using 'Battle Code' (BATCO). Control is the only authority to impose or lift radio silence either fully or selectively. The lifting of radio silence can only be ordered on the authority of the HQ that imposed it in the first place. During periods of radio silence a station may, with justifiable cause, transmit a message. This is known as Breaking Radio Silence. The necessary replies are permitted but radio silence is automatically re-imposed afterwards. The breaking station transmits its message using BATCO to break radio silence.

The command for imposing radio silence is:

Hello all stations, this is 0. Impose radio silence. Over.

Other countermeasures are also applied to protect secrets against enemy signals intelligence.

Electronic emissions can be used to plot a line of bearing to an intercepted signal, and if more than one receiver detects it, triangulation can estimate its location. Radio Detection Finding (RDF) was critically important during the Battle of Britain and reached a high state of maturity in early 1943 with the aid of United States institutions aiding British Research and Development under the pressures of the continuing Battle of the Atlantic during World War II when locating U-boats. One key breakthrough was marrying MIT/Raytheon developed CRT technology with pairs of RDF antennas giving a differentially derived instant bearing useful in tactical situations, enabling escorts to run down the bearing to an intercept. The U-boat command of Wolfpacks required a minimum once daily communications check-in, allowing new Hunter-Killer groups to localize U-boats tactically from April on, leading to the dramatic swing the fortunes of war in the battle between March, when the U-boats sank over 300 allied ships and "Black May" when the allies killed at least 44 U-boats—each with orders to not exercise EMCON/radio silence.

Non-military

Radio silence can be maintained for other purposes, such as for highly sensitive radio astronomy. Radio silence can also occur for spacecraft whose antenna is temporarily pointed away from Earth in order to perform observations, or there is insufficient power to operate the radio transmitter, or during re-entry when the hot plasma surrounding the spacecraft blocks radio signals.

Radio silence can be used in nautical and aeronautical communications to allow faint distress calls to be heard (see Mayday). In the latter case, the controlling station can order other stations to stop transmitting with the proword "Seelonce Seelonce Seelonce". (The word uses the French pronunciation of the word silence, "See-LAWNCE."). Once the need for radio silence is finished, the controlling station lifts radio silence by the prowords "Seelonce FINI." Disobeying a Seelonce Mayday order constitutes a serious criminal offence in most countries. The aviation equivalent of Seelonce Mayday is the phrase or command "Stop Transmitting - Distress (or Mayday)". "Distress traffic ended" is the phrase used when the emergency is over. Again, disobeying such an order is extremely dangerous and is therefore a criminal offence in most countries.

In the USA, CONELRAD, EBS and EAS were also a way of maintaining radio silence, mainly in broadcasting, in the event of an attack.

Examples of radio silence orders

• Radio silencing helped hide the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II. The attackers had used AM radio station KGU in Honolulu as a homing signal.
• On June 2, 1942, during WWII, a nine-minute air-raid alert, including at 9:22 pm a radio silence order applied to all radio stations from Mexico to Canada.

See also

• Guard band
• The Zone of Silence
• United States National Radio Quiet Zone