On April 26, 2004, Army acquisition officials convened the Army Systems Acquisition Review Council to conduct a Milestone B decision review for the Joint Tactical Radio System Cluster 5 Program. The Cluster 5 program is the Army-led portion of the Joint Tactical Radio System development effort to build the handheld, manpack and small form fit variants of JTRS.

The meeting was chaired by Claude M. Bolton, Army Acquisition Executive, and attended by GEN George W. Casey Jr., Vice Chief of Staff of the Army along with other members of the Army staff. Bolton acknowledged and approved an acquisition strategy change to move the single-channel hand-held radio development from the first spiral and include it in the second spiral.

The JTRS Cluster 2 program will provide systems to meet the Services single-channel handheld near-term requirements. At the close of the review Bolton approved the program's entry into the System Development and Demonstration phase and stated that he would sign the proposed Acquisition Decision Memorandum with minor modifications. The Army had previously postponed contract award of the handheld, manpack and small form-fit contract pending the results of this review.

Although the first production JTR sets for vehicular and rotary wing platform applications are not expected for initial fielding until second quarter of fiscal year 2007, the JTRS Joint Program Office has already received interim software builds for four of the six JTRS key performance parameter waveforms. JTRS KPP waveforms are the minimal set waveforms that each JTR set must support. All six of the JTRS KPP waveforms to include SINCGARS ESIP, HAVE QUICK II, EPLRS, Link-16, SATCOM and the new Wideband Networking Waveform will be demonstrated, some with limited functionality, during the JTRS Early Operational Assessment during the second quarter of FY05.

Enhanced Position Location Reporting System Testing was successfully completed in early April 04 at Fort Huachuca. Software tests verified the latest upgrades to the EPLRS Radio Set. The U.S. Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command was awarded the production contract, which will result in the building of all remaining Net Control Stations. (These are also referred to as the ENM).