NO CAPTION
Posted on 10/06/2005 7:49:17 PM PDT by SandRat
CAMP VIRGINIA, Kuwait —As Fort Huachuca soldiers wait for their communications equipment to arrive, some are fine-tuning systems that have been in Kuwait for years.
A number of tropospheric systems were at Camp Doha were moved to Camp Virginia, where members of the 11th Signal Brigade repaired, checked out and inventoried the four tropos — as called by GIs — that send radio signals into the atmosphere and scatter the signals back to Earth to be used by the Army.
Staff Sgt. Jeremy Brown said the systems will eventually head for Iraq, where soldiers of the 40th Signal Battalion will use them, along with other communications technology.
“We’re checking them out,” said Brown, a tropo team chief with the 40th’s Company C.
The types of systems the 40th provides are critical components. For a combat commander, “it’s his lifeline,” Brown said.
Communication capability has led the Army to ensure there are redundancies. And Brown said that although tropos are an older technology, the equipment provides important communication links.
While Brown arrived in Kuwait earlier this week with nearly 130 other brigade soldiers, Sgt. Chad Brummund, of the brigade’s assessment team, has been “in country,” as Army parlance would put it, for a couple of months. He is looking forward to returning to Fort Huachuca soon.
After not being used for some time, the tropos and their ancillary support equipment needed some work.
“There was a lot of sand in them,” Brummund said, emphasizing “a lot.”
The sand requires soldiers to do a major cleaning on the equipment.
Although he and others on the team are almost done, soldiers of the 40th were taking inventories of the hundreds of pieces of equipment each system has.
In a sandy area, 2nd Lt. Jonathan Melton and Sgt. David Ostrum checked off an inventory list.
Melton, Company C’s 1st Platoon leader, asked whether a certain item was available. Ostrum, a tropo team chief, would either say yes or point to the material.
Other soldiers did the same thing.
Brummund said the assessment of systems once assigned to another Signal Corps unit was “quite a venture.” Days of more than 12 hours were not unusual, he said.
On Wednesday, the final day for completing the task, the soldiers were working under lights to complete the inventory process before the company took official ownership.
Melton would sign for all the systems, and each one then would be signed for by team chiefs like Ostrum.
The soldiers of the 40th still must check the unit’s communications equipment once it arrives in Kuwait and before it goes to Iraq.
“There’s going to be some long days,” Brown said.
Troposcatter... Cool... We don't need no stinkin' satellites...
A long time ago when I first came in the service I worked on a TRC-132A 60 Channel vox 48 Channel data, Heavy TROPO with the 39' TRA-39 Antennas. Needed an MJQ-11 200KW generator to power them
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.