The Defence High Frequency Communications Service or the DHFCS is a British military beyond line-of-sight communication system operated by the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in state ...

(MOD) and used predominately by the UK Armed Forces, as well as other authorised users. The system operates from six transmitting and receiving sites across the United Kingdom and is controlled from a network control centre located at Forest Moor in North Yorkshire and a backup site at

Kinloss Barracks Kinloss Barracks is a military installation located near the village of Kinloss, on the Moray Firth in the north of Scotland. Until 2012 it was a Royal Air Force (RAF) station, RAF Kinloss. History RAF Kinloss The Royal Air Force station ...

in Moray. Overseas sites are located in

Ascension Island Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island, 7°56′ south of the Equator in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is about from the coast of Africa and from the coast of South America. It is governed as part of the British Overseas Territory of ...

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ...

and

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouze ...

. In 2003 VT Merlin Communications (now

Babcock International Group Babcock International Group plc is a British aerospace, defence and nuclear engineering services company based in London, England. It specialises in managing complex assets and infrastructure. Although the company has civil contracts, its main b ...

) were awarded the contract to operate the system for a period of fifteen years on behalf of the Ministry of Defence. The system is to be replaced by the Defence Strategic Radio Service (DSRS) also operated by Babcock

History

Legacy systems

Prior to the creation of the DHFCS, the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

(RAF) and

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

(RN) operated their own independent

high frequency High frequency (HF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) between 3 and 30 megahertz (MHz). It is also known as the decameter band or decameter wave as its wavelengths range from one to ten ...

(HF) communications systems. The RAF's Strike Command Integrated Communications System (STCICS), later known as Terrestrial Air Sea Communications (TASCOMM), operated from six sites within the UK whilst the RN system had twelve sites. The systems overlapped in their capabilities whilst simultaneously having gaps in overall capability, high running costs, lack of flexibility and neither were used to their full capacity.

Public private partnership

In 2003 the

(MOD) decided to merge the existing high frequency communications systems into one enhanced system and thereafter operate and manage it as the Defence High Frequency Communications Service (DHFCS). The Defence Communication Services Agency (DCSA) (now Information Systems and Services (ISS) under

Joint Forces Command The United Kingdom's Strategic Command (StratCom), previously known as Joint Forces Command (JFC), manages allocated joint capabilities from the three armed services. History Background In August 2010 the then Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, as ...

) awarded a £228m public private partnership contract to VT Merlin Communications (now

) to upgrade and operate the system. The contract lasts for fifteen years (ending in 2018) and is funded by a reduction in the number of transmitting, receiving and control sites and a reduction of 266 military personnel.

Site rationalisation

Through the rationalisation of sites, twelve sites (four RAF, seven RN and a joint site in

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) were closed between 2003 and 2006. Many sites were used for other military purposes with the sites at Bampton Castle, Chelveston and Milltown being the only sites which closed entirely.

Closed legacy system sites

Purpose

The service provides HF communications for the Ministry of Defence (Royal Air Force, Royal Navy,

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkha ...

and Joint Forces Command), other British government departments and

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...

(including its

Partnership for Peace The Partnership for Peace (PfP; french: Partenariat pour la paix) is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) program aimed at creating trust between the member states of NATO and other states mostly in Europe, including post-Soviet state ...

organisation). A memorandum of understanding exists to allow cooperation between the DHFCS and the US Air Force's (USAF) High Frequency Global Communications System (HFGCS) through a link to the HFGCS at the USAF facility at RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire. A link with the Australian Defence Force's High Frequency Communications System (HFCS) based in

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

also exists. The service allows real-time strategic communications between users which comprise ground stations, submarines, surface vessels, fixed wing aircraft and helicopters.

Structure and operation

The DHFCS was declared operational in March 2008. Within the UK, the system is divided into three stations of paired transmitter and receiver sites. 'UK North' comprises sites at

and

Crimond Crimond is a village in Aberdeenshire, in the northeast of Scotland, located northwest of the port of Peterhead and just over from the coast. Geography The main A90 road runs through Crimond and is lined by Crimond Church with a village ...

in north east Scotland, 'UK Middle' at Forest Moor and Inskip in northern England and 'UK South' at St. Eval and

Penhale Sands Penhale Sands ( kw, Peran Treth, meaning ''St Piran's sands''), or Penhale Dunes, is a complex of sand dunes and a protected area for its wildlife, on the north Cornwall coast in England, UK. It is the most extensive system of sand dunes in Cornw ...

in south west England. Three overseas stations, with two sites each, are located in

and the

. The system was originally operated from a network control station (NCS) located at Forest Moor, with an alternate network control station (ANCS) at Kinloss which could be used in the event that Forest Moor station was unavailable. Split site working was introduced in 2011 which allows both the Forest Moor NCS and Kinloss ANCS to control 50% of the network, increasing resilience and recovery time in the event of a loss of service and minimising potential network unavailability. Sites at

Anthorn Anthorn (pronounced ) is a village in Cumbria, England. Historically in Cumberland, it is situated on the south side of the Solway Firth, on the Wampool estuary, about west of Carlisle. It is the location of the Anthorn radio station, bro ...

(Formerly HMS Nuthatch) and Skelton in northern England provide a

Very Low Frequency Very low frequency or VLF is the ITU designation for radio frequencies (RF) in the range of 3–30 kHz, corresponding to wavelengths from 100 to 10 km, respectively. The band is also known as the myriameter band or myriameter wave a ...

(VLF) transmitting capability which is used to send communications to submerged submarines. Due to the low frequencies involved submarines can only receive VLF communications and do not carry VLF transmission aerials. Therefore, there is no requirement for land-based receiver sites as communications are one way. The DHFCS is known to have the following capabilities. * Nuclear Firing Chain (HF/LF Secure Data) * Ship to shore

Automatic Link Establishment Automatic Link Establishment, commonly known as ALE, is the worldwide de facto standard for digitally initiating and sustaining HF radio communications. ALE is a feature in an HF communications radio transceiver system that enables the radio statio ...

(ALE), Non ALE (Secure Data) – STANAG 5066 ARQ & DRC * Direct Access users Channels (Voice) * Multi Channel Broadcasts (Secure Data) * Single Channel Broadcasts (Data & Voice) * NATO Broadcasts (Secure Data) * Off the Air Monitoring (Secure Data) * Legacy Ship to Shore Services (Secure Data) * Rear Links Services (Secure Data) * Maritime Air Telecommunication Organisation (Secure Data & Voice) * Terrestrial Air Sea Communications (TASCOMM - Voice) * Voice Automatic Link Establishment

DHFCS sites in the United Kingdom

Overseas DHFCS sites

References

Citations

Sources

* * * {{cite web, url = http://www.hfindustry.com/meetings_presentations/presentation_materials/2012_sept_hfia/presentations/Babcock_DHFCS_NCS_Forest_Moor_Visit.pdf, title = Defence High Frequency Communications Service, date = 5 September 2012, website = High Frequency Industry Association, publisher = Babcock International Group, archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20171001213609/http://www.hfindustry.com/meetings_presentations/presentation_materials/2012_sept_hfia/presentations/Babcock_DHFCS_NCS_Forest_Moor_Visit.pdf, archivedate = 1 October 2017, url-status = dead, accessdate = 5 June 2017, ref = {{sfnRef, Babcock International Group, 2012 British Armed Forces British military radio History of telecommunications in the United Kingdom Military communications of the United Kingdom Military electronics of the United Kingdom Organisations based in Harrogate Organisations based in Moray Science and technology in North Yorkshire