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13. What is Spread Spectrum？
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Spread Spectrum technology is a wideband radio frequency technique developed by the military
for use in reliable, secure, mission-critical communication systems. It is designed to trade off
bandwidth efficiency for reliability, integrity, and security. In other words, more bandwidth is
consumed than in the case of narrowband transmission, but the trade off produces a signal that
is, in effect, louder and thus easier to detect, provided that the receiver knows the parameters of
the spread-spectrum signal being broadcast. If a receiver is not tuned to the right frequency, a
spread –spectrum signal looks like background noise. There are two main alternatives, Direct
Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) and Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS).
