Joint Electronics Type Designation System

The Joint Electronics Type Designation System (JETDS), which was previously known as the Joint Army-Navy Nomenclature System (AN System. JAN) and the Joint Communications-Electronics Nomenclature System, is a method developed by the U.S. War Department during World War II for assigning an unclassified designator to electronic equipment. JETDS is described in detail by MIL-STD-196.

Computer software and commercial unmodified electronics for which the manufacturer maintains design control are not covered.

Electronic material, from a military point of view, generally includes those electronic devices employed in data processing, detection and tracking (underwater, sea, land-based, air and space), recognition and identification, communications, aids to navigation, weapons control and evaluation, flight control, and electronics countermeasures. Nomenclature is assigned to:

In the JETDS system, complete equipment sets or systems are designated with a sequence of letters and digits prefixed by AN/, then three letters, a hyphen, a number, and (occasionally) some optional letters (AN/AAA-nnn suffixed by (Vn){hardware/software version} or (T){training equipment} . The three letters tell where the equipment is used, what it does and its purpose. For example, the AN/PRC-77 is a Portable Radio used for two way Communications. The numbers for any given type of equipment are assigned sequentially, thus higher numbers indicate more modern systems.

The three letter codes have the following meanings:

Following the three-letter designation, after a dash, is a number, uniquely identifying the equipment. Different variants of the same equipment may be given an additional letter and other suffixes (for example, AN/SPY-1A, AN/SPY-1B, etc.), while entirely new equipment within the same category is given a new number (for example, AN/SPY-3).

A suffix of the three characters "(V)" (capital V) followed by a serially generated numeric configuration identifier is appended to the three-letter designation above to specify a particular hardware configuration.

A suffix of (P) indicates a plug in module or component of a system.

A suffix of (C) indicates a controlled cryptographic item.

A suffix of "(T)" (capital T) indicates training systems.

For example:

AN/ABC-1(V)4 would be the 4th variant of the AN/ABC-1 equipment.

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