Satellites fail. When electronic warfare intensifies or orbital assets get jammed, modern warships risk losing their voice entirely. That single vulnerability explains why the U.S. Navy just awarded a $9.6 million contract for something that sounds wildly outdated on paper. They are buying High Frequency Over-the-Horizon Communication kits, better known as HFORCE.
Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division in Lakehurst, New Jersey, handed this firm-fixed-price order to MaXentric Technologies. The deal covers 12 low-rate initial production kits, integration work, performance testing, and ongoing sustainment support spread across locations in New Jersey and California through March 2028. It is a vital step toward fixing a blind spot that planners have worried about for decades.
What HFORCE Actually Does
Most people assume modern military communications rely entirely on orbital constellations or high-speed cellular networks. They do not. When things get hostile, those satellite paths are prime targets for adversaries equipped with advanced anti-access and area-denial capabilities.
HFORCE operates in the 3 to 30 megahertz band. Instead of beaming signals up to space and back down, these systems bounce radio waves off the Earth's ionosphere. This allows ships and shore units to communicate across vast distances far beyond the visual horizon without touching a single satellite.
For years, military investment poured almost exclusively into satellite tech and digital data links. High frequency technology was left by the wayside, considered a relic of the Cold War. But combat realities in contested regions changed minds fast. You need a backup plan that nobody can shoot down or jam from orbit.
The Engineering Challenge Behind the Buy
Building a modern high frequency system that fits today's tactical needs isn't as simple as dusting off old Vietnam-era gear. Older shipboard setups required a separate physical amplifier for every single radio channel in use. Ships simply do not have infinite space for bulky hardware.
This contract integrates HFORCE with a High Dynamic Range Multi-Carrier Amplifier, or HDR MCA. Back in 2018, the Navy started looking for a fix through a Small Business Innovation Research solicitation. They wanted an amplifier that could handle up to 36 simultaneous radio channels across VHF and UHF bands without causing signal interference.
MaXentric won that challenge, maturing the technology through mid-range readiness levels by 2022. Because they proved their concept through the earlier phases of that program, the Navy used its SBIR Phase III authority to bypass a lengthy open competition and award this production contract directly.
Funding and Next Steps
The entire $9.6 million price tag comes straight from fiscal 2025 Defense-wide procurement funds, and the government obligated the full amount right at the time of the award.
The initial batch covers just 12 kits. The contract paperwork does not spell out which specific hulls or shore commands will test them first, nor does it detail how many more units the service plans to purchase once this initial production run wraps up.
Honesty is required here. Old-school radio has major limitations. Atmospheric conditions change constantly, meaning ionospheric bounce can be fickle, noisy, and heavily dependent on solar weather. It does not offer the massive bandwidth of a modern broadband satellite link.
Even so, bandwidth does you zero good if the connection is jammed dead. By pairing multi-channel amplification with robust over-the-horizon capabilities, the Navy is hedging its bets against a worst-case scenario.
Check your core systems, evaluate your redundancy, and stop assuming your primary communication lines are invincible.
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