Translating Geek to Grunt

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Translating Geek to Grunt

“The Linkway attached to the STT for the JNN is has a high BER from the RHN because the PVCs weren’t built correctly.” How many times have we said something like this to the Commander only to watch their eyes glaze over, get pissed off, and walk away mumbling something about “FIX IT”? Signal folks have a language of their own that few people outside of their own group are able to speak or understand. We understand the language of “geek”, but when we walk outside and talk to the people around us, they don’t understand it because they only speak “grunt”.

What Time Is It?

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WIN-T NTP Architecture

Let me give you a scenario. You are having some problems on the network that are spread across several devices. You go into the log file of each device and see a bunch of messages with a mix-match of various times that mean absolutely nothing to you. In short, you have no idea what is going on with your network.

Shapes for Visio Diagrams

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Network Diagram

As I’ve stated in previous posts, an accurate network diagram can be really important when it comes to troubleshooting and managing the network. In order for a diagram to be of use to us, we have to maintain it which means that we update it every time the network changes. Another important part of a network diagram, is that it uses recognized symbols to depict what it is trying to show. ADRP 1-02 (Terms and Military Symbols) does a great job of providing us with standardized symbols for units of various sizes, terrain features, and even many pieces of equipment, but almost nothing to symbolize current day military communications equipment.