The invention concerns a chaotic communications system, method and apparatus having a transmitter configured to spread an input data signal over a wide intermediate frequency band, by digitally generating a first chaotic sequence of values to form a spreading code. The spreading code is then used to form a digital IF chaotic spread spectrum signal having a uniform sampling interval. The duration of the sampling interval is then selectively varied in accordance with a first pseudo-random sequence, thereby introducing a known dither in the digital IF chaotic spread spectrum signal. After introducing the known dither, the digital IF chaotic spread spectrum signal is converted to an analog RF spread spectrum signal at a conversion rate that exceeds the sampling interval of the chaotic spread spectrum signal. A corresponding receiver recovers the input data from the spread transmitted signal. This spreading may utilize a chaotic sequence employing discrete time chaos dithering.