In the red dirt near Laverton in Western Australia, two rows of poles sit side by side, stretching three kilometres into the distance.
They are antennas — 480 sets of them — and they are just one part of a vast radar system that lets Australia monitor the sky and sea thousands of kilometres from our shores.
The system is called JORN, which stands for Jindalee Operational Radar Network. Jindalee is an Aboriginal word that means ‘the place the eye cannot see’.
“It’s critical for Australia,” said the nation’s Chief Defence Scientist Professor Tanya Monro.
“Being a small nation, we need to understand where the risks to our country come from. And JORN gives us those eyes and ears.”
The system is recognised as a world leader in over-the-horizon radar. And Canada has taken note, announcing plans last month to spend $6.5 billion to purchase JORN for its Arctic defence.
“It really is a very significant milestone,” Professor Monro told 7.30.
“It is the biggest defence export proposed by quite some margin, and it really holds up the extraordinary things we can do in Australia when we put our minds to it and commit.”
Top Gun’s Maverick couldn’t avoid it
JORN is the product of 50 years of development by the Commonwealth’s Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG).
Aside from Laverton, it also operates from stations near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory and Longreach in Queensland to give Australia unsurpassed surveillance capabilities up to 3,000 kilometres away.
The radar’s operations centre is at RAAF Base Edinburgh, north of Adelaide, and across the road is a vast DSTG site where research leader Dr Joe Fabrizio heads a team that constantly tweaks the high frequency radio waves that give JORN its edge.
“The interest that there has been in JORN is a testament to the high class and high value over-the-horizon radar systems that defence and [the]defence industry … are capable of producing,” he said.
Unlike conventional radars, JORN transmits high frequency radio waves 110 kilometres up into the ionosphere, where they bounce back to the Earth’s surface from above.
Objects underneath — like planes or ships on the ocean surface — are detected when waves reflect back to JORN’s massive array of receivers, thousands of kilometres away.
“One of the key features of over the horizon radar is it’s down-looking viewing geometry,” Dr Fabrizio said.
“What that means is that targets that [are]flying low can’t deliberately use mountains or valleys to avoid illumination and avoid detection by an (over-the-horizon) radar.”
In other words, all that low flying you see in movies like Top Gun Maverick to avoid radar won’t work with JORN.
“An over-the-horizon radar can detect and track aircraft … the same size as a BAE Hawk 127, which is around 12-metres long, or larger aircraft, and ships the same size as an Armidale-class patrol boat which is roughly 56-metres long,” Dr Fabrizio said.
It’s not American
Defence journalist Murray Brewster from Canada’s CBC said JORN is just the sort of system needed in the Arctic.
Canada has been under pressure from the US to ramp up defence spending, especially in the far north where its Cold War-era radar stations need to be replaced.
“It’s been a few years that Canada has been in the market for this,” Brewster told 7.30.
“However the interest in Australia’s system is very, very new.”
So new, that when Canada’s new prime minister Mark Carney announced the deal to purchase JORN, many in the defence community were stunned.
“It is not something I’ve heard discussed in defence circles until virtually just ahead of the announcement,” he said.
Brewster believes with US President Donald Trump imposing tariffs and proposing to annex Canada, JORN has one other major advantage — it’s not American.
“I think one of the things that that led to this decision, and it … seemingly coming out of nowhere, is the fact that the JORN system is operational and it’s proven — and it’s also Australian,”
Brewster said.
“[The purchase] presented itself as a political opportunity for Canada to not wean itself off of the US defence industrial complex entirely, but certainly make a political point.”
Canada ‘moving with urgency’
Historically Canada moves slowly when it comes to defence purchases and it has taken so long to replace its F-18 fighter jets, that in 2019 it bought used ones from Australia to fill the gap until new planes arrive.
And there have been few details about how the JORN purchase will unfold, but Professor Monro believes this time Canada intends to move much faster.
“It’s very clear that Canada are moving with urgency, because they also have some really pressing needs to be able to surveil their northern reaches across the Arctic,”
she said.
Climate change is impacting the Arctic region and ice coverage is receding. The vast waters north of Canada are more accessible than ever to potential threats.
The country recently said there was increased Russian and Chinese activity in Arctic waters.
Brewster says Canada can’t afford to wait on defence.
“The government needs to demonstrate not only to the United States but to other major allies that it is taking the defence of its own territory seriously,” he said.
He believes buying JORN from Australia does just that.
