Electronic warfare field testing sits at the intersection of engineering, safety, law, and public trust. If you are running community test events, university experiments, or small-company demonstrations you must treat testing as an operational activity with formal controls. The following is a compact, practical checklist and set of procedures that I use when planning and executing EW field tests in the United States. Key regulatory and safety points are presented first and then translated into actionable test-team practices.

Legal and regulatory fundamentals

  • Do not operate intentional jamming equipment without explicit authority. Federal rules prohibit the operation, marketing, or sale of devices intended to jam authorized radio communications. Even well-meaning tests that interfere with public safety, cellular service, GPS, or aviation navigation can cause real harm and expose participants to heavy fines or criminal charges. Plan on approvals, not exceptions.

  • Coordinate spectrum usage early. For federal-spectrum bands and for tests that could impact other users, NTIA and other spectrum management authorities provide procedures for assignments, coordination, and interference reporting. If your test could impact regulated users obtain frequency assignments or written coordination through the proper channels. Treat spectrum coordination as a gating item for the test to proceed.

  • If your test uses airspace, UAS, or anything that mixes RF with aircraft operations, involve the FAA. UAS operations beyond visual line of sight or in controlled airspace typically require waivers or authorizations and often a NOTAM. File the appropriate waivers and NOTAMs well in advance and document the operational limits imposed by those approvals.

  • Prepare for reporting and incident response. If your test causes unintended interference, report promptly to the authorities indicated by guidance and follow the incident response steps they require. Agencies such as DHS and the FCC have guidance for identifying and responding to jamming and interference events; incorporate those reporting paths into your test plan.

Pre-test planning checklist

1) Define the experiment and success criteria. Document the objective, target signals and frequencies, expected transmit power and duty cycle, required measurement sensitivity, and what constitutes a stop condition. Give the document a version and require formal sign-off. This is your single source of truth during execution.

2) Risk assessment and safety plan. Identify hazards from RF exposure, aviation interaction, civil services degradation, and physical risks from platform operations. For each hazard record probability, severity, mitigations, and residual risk. Make mitigation controls auditable and assign clear responsibilities.

3) Spectrum coordination and permissions. Determine whether your planned emissions fall into licensed, unlicensed, or federal bands. For anything that could affect third-party services, obtain a frequency assignment, special temporary authority, or written concurrence from the affected party at least weeks in advance. Track the approvals and attach them to the test plan.

4) Airspace coordination. If you are flying UAS or the test footprint crosses aviation routes, submit FAA waivers and request any required NOTAMs. Do not assume that working at low altitude removes the need for coordination. Include fallback plans if the FAA or local ATC impose last-minute constraints.

5) Stakeholder notification. Notify local public safety agencies, the nearest airport, local spectrum management offices, adjacent range operators, and property owners. Provide a clear contact roster for the test director and the RF safety officer. Keep notifications succinct but factual and include a 24/7 phone number for real time inquiries.

6) Public safety and legal counsel. Engage legal counsel with spectrum experience and, if appropriate, a public affairs contact to manage community questions. Protect your team and the community by being transparent about mitigations and by publishing operating hours and contact points.

Range and site selection

  • Prefer a controlled range with established spectrum and range safety procedures. Military and commercial test ranges have processes for electromagnetic tests because they operate with known footprints and radio-emission boundaries. If you cannot use a controlled range, choose isolated locations with clear buffer zones, predictable propagation (flat terrain preferred), and the ability to physically secure the perimeter.

  • Use RF containment where possible. Conduct high-risk jamming or spoofing experiments inside shielded enclosures, anechoic chambers, or within attenuated feedlines with calibrated loads. When open-air testing is required, minimize radiated power and limit the duration of disruptive emissions. If you need to reproduce high-power effects use calibrated coaxial attenuators and line-of-sight suppression to protect the environment.

  • Establish a radio quiet zone. Map and mark the area where emissions may be heard. Physically mark exclusion zones and enforce them with staff. If using vehicles or mobile emitters, use bonded grounding and proper cabling practices to avoid stray emissions and arcing that create unpredictable RFI.

Personnel, roles, and training

  • Appoint a test director and an RF safety officer. The test director runs the experiment. The RF safety officer holds authority to stop the test immediately on any safety or interference concern.

  • Train every team member. Train for the test procedures, emergency shutdown, and how to collect and preserve evidence if unexpected interference occurs. Run at least one dry rehearsal without RF to validate choreography.

  • Insider rules for public interaction. If the test site is near populated areas, assign staff to greet and address passersby. Have prepared scripts that explain the test at a high level and provide the official contact for complaints.

Measurement, equipment, and data capture

  • Use calibrated instruments. Measurement uncertainty undermines test value. Use spectrum analyzers, receivers, and power meters with current calibration certificates and capture raw IQ where practical for later analysis.

  • Log everything. Capture timestamps, operator IDs, configuration files, GPS coordinates, waveforms used, antenna models and orientations, cabling losses, and instrument settings. Store logs in a write-once format and keep backups off-site.

  • Design for isolation and attenuation. When injecting signals into devices under test, prefer shielded test harnesses or RF combiners with known isolation. If free-space coupling is necessary, measure path loss and include margin in your safety analysis.

  • Prepare kill-switches. Every transmitter and test platform must have a clearly labeled hardware kill-switch and documented shutdown sequence. The RF safety officer must have the authority and ability to execute an emergency shutdown instantly.

Test execution best practices

  • Start low, step up. Begin at the lowest power and narrowest bandwidth that demonstrates your effect. Validate instrumentation and telemetry at each incremental step. This reduces the chance of unexpected spillover.

  • Timebox disruptive activities. Schedule the most disruptive emissions during windows that minimize civilian impact. Keep the duration as short as feasible and document the exact start and stop times.

  • Continuous monitoring. Monitor adjacent channels, civil aviation bands, and any third-party services you agreed to protect. If detectors show out-of-bound energy, stop immediately and investigate.

  • Maintain a running anomaly log. Record any deviations, operator errors, or environmental effects. Those notes are essential for after-action analysis and for regulators if questions arise.

Post-test actions and reporting

  • Debrief and preserve data. Conduct an immediate after-action debrief with the whole team, capture lessons learned, and preserve raw data and configuration snapshots. Tag files with the sign-off from the test director and RF safety officer.

  • Issue an after-action report. Summarize objectives, methods, results, anomalies, and corrective actions. Attach spectra, time-stamped logs, approvals, and notifications sent to authorities. This report becomes the institutional memory and can protect the team during any external review.

  • If you caused interference, report promptly. There are channels for reporting interference and suspected jamming events. Follow the guidance in official reporting channels and cooperate with investigators. Prompt, transparent cooperation mitigates risk and demonstrates responsible practice.

Community and ethical considerations

  • Design tests with third-party safety first. Community trust is fragile. Never prioritize experimental convenience over the safety of public safety communications, aviation navigation, or critical infrastructure.

  • Share sanitized results. Publish methods and results that do not reveal exploit instructions that could be used maliciously. Educate the community on detection and mitigation rather than on how to break systems.

  • Work with professional bodies. Associations and standards bodies publish best practices for EMC and airborne equipment testing which are relevant when your work touches avionics or safety-of-flight systems. Use recognized procedures for environmental and EMI testing when applicable.

Closing notes

Field testing EW is not a hobby; it is a professional activity with outsized public impact. Plan thoroughly, coordinate early, instrument comprehensively, and always be ready to stop the test when the safety officer or a regulator raises a concern. You will get better data and keep the community and your team out of legal trouble. Follow the upstream authorities for legal and coordination questions and treat every test like an operational mission with defined objectives, roles, and fail-safe controls.