Getting from A to Z

Troubleshooting

When I entered the Army in July 1999, I came in as 31F (switch operator). Anyone who worked with MSE will remember that it had almost absolutely no data capabilities, but also that it was extremely easy to troubleshoot. Signal flow for MSE was pretty darn easy to understand. If you understood the idea of how the system worked, the signal flow was easy to follow. With the introduction of JNN and IP data networks to tactical communications, logical and physical said “It’s been fun” and headed their separate ways leaving our operators and even ourselves busy scratching our heads wondering how the hell it all worked.

Air in the Fuel Line

Running on Empty

Just a quick post today. I didn’t include it in my NTC trends (although I probably should have) but something so incredibly easy to fix and yet I have seen it happen probably almost every single rotation (and in fairness, it happens probably once a rotation for my teams command post too)…..Getting air in the fuel line (aka…running out of gas).

Why we Ground to the Ground

How not to Ground

Grounding is something that every signal Soldier should be familiar with. I would hazard to say that, we have all heard of it, all acknowledge the fact that it is an import step during the setup of any signal system (it is hard to find a technical manual for a piece of equipment with a power plug that doesn’t mention grounding at least once) but few people understand why we need to do it and even fewer know how to do it properly.

Trends from the National Training Center Part 4- Signal Maintenance

NETOPS Trends From NTC - Signal Maintenance

The Brigade S6 is responsible for providing the overall communications plan for the BCT. In order to accomplish that mission, they must continually know the status of all systems that support that mission to include JNNs, CPNs, and STTs along with their support equipment (generators). This is part four of a series of posts concerning the network trends that I regularly see here at the National Training Center as units pass through on rotation.