R-330Zh Zhitel Russian Cellular Jamming and Direction Finding System

The R-330Zh also named Zhitel is a jamming communication station designed and manufactured by the Russian Company Protek. The system is in service with the Russian army. The whole system includes one Ural-43203/KAMAZ-43114 truck and one shelter with four telescopic masts. The truck is the control center for the operators. The shelter is equipped with four telescopic active phased array transmitter antennas mounted on a four-wheel trailer. The R-330Zh is designed for detection, analysis, direction-finding, and jamming of satellite and cellular phone communication systems operating in the frequency band from 100 MHz to 2,000 MHz. The jamming system provides analysis and selection of emitters’ signal parameters. The R-330Zh jamming station was used by the Russian army during the Crimean crisis in March 2014. The system is designed to accomplish the following tasks: detection, direction finding, and jamming of wearable mobile stations of mobile satellite communications such as Inmarsat and Iridium; detection, direction finding, and jamming base stations of cellular communication, standard GSM 1900, consumer navigation equipment; and jamming of satellite communications systems NAVSTAR (GPS). The R-330Zh can operate in stand-alone mode as well as in pairs, both master and slave under the control of the primary R-330Zh. Because the system in the trailer is fragile, it will likely be found close to a road; it is unlikely that the system will be taken cross-country. The Zhitel system is part of the inventory of the EW brigades’ REB-S battalions, and, in addition to the tasks listed above, can be used for jamming an aircraft’s communication and satellite navigation (GPS, Galileo, BeiDou, etc.). The Zhitel system attracted an extraordinary amount of attention in 2015 when it was reported by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to have been used in eastern Ukraine, supposedly to impede the use of drones by suppressing GPS signals (OSCE 2015). --- COGINT Report Data (7 June 2023, UNCLASSIFIED) --- Bandwidth/Frequencies: Operating frequency 0.1–2.0 GHz Range: 20–25 km (ground-based consumer equipment); at least 50 km Additional Information: • The R-330Zh Zhitel system can function as a standalone EW unit, alongside another R- 330Zh Zhitel unit, or as part of the R-330M1P Diazabol automated jamming complex • Affects and suppresses both friendly and adversarial communications • 20 minutes of reported collection time before danger of adversarial detection gets too high • Lengthy deployment time for antenna installation in the field; all antenna installation is accomplished manually without mechanization R-330ZH ZHITEL R-330Zh Zhitel jamming station. Source: © 26 July 2016, Topwar.ru Performance Specifications: • Signal technical analysis range [GHz]: 0.1–2.0 • Signal emission source jamming frequencies and ranges [GHz]: 0.8–0.96, 1.227, 1.575, 1.5–1.7, 1.7–1.9 • Measurement error of sources of radio emission [deg]: ≤ 2 • Frequency range scanning speed [GHz/s]: detection mode: at least 0.8, direction finding mode: not less than 0.4 • Beam width [deg]: in azimuth: 90-120, in elevation: ≤ 20 • Signal emission source jamming range [km]: ground-based: 20–25, installed on aircraft: ≥ 50 • Deployment time [min]: 40