Finding Your Replacement

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WOC Rank on Hat

The Army Warrant Officer is a highly trained and specialized technical expert in their particular field. This has been true since its creation on July 9, 1918, but what a warrant officer is today has changed. Today we are no longer expected to just be the crusty old guy in the corner that drinks coffee and magically fixes things (although that is still true), we are also expected to be part “officer” as well. That means that we are leaders, we are staff officers, we are planners, and still, we are experts. This is a tall task to fill and requires that we continually replenish our ranks with only the most qualified and talented individuals available.

Cyber is Here

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TACLANE Encrypted Tunnel

For anyone who doesn’t regularly check the MILPER message site you may have missed three separate messages that were released last week that directly affect signal warrants and our Soldiers. As you probably know, the Army is in the process of manning its new Cyber Branch. The officers got their chance to cross over earlier this year and it looks like the same is finally true for the warrants and Soldiers.

Happy Birthday Signal Chief

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Cake Smash

One year ago today (June 1) is the one year anniversary for Signal Chief. What started out as a side project of mine to help educate Net Techs on the stuff that I see every rotation (in the hopes that they would be able to fix it before they go here) has kind of blown up. And while there is still a lot more that I would like to do with the site, I am pretty damn happy with where it is right now.

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.

5 Router Commands That Saved My Life

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Cisco Tattoo

We have all learned an important lesson in life the hard way. When it comes to working on the router or switch, there is often a couple of commands that you discovered after beating your head against the wall for a while that if you had known about them earlier, would have made your life so much easier. These are those commands for me.

But they didn’t teach me that in WOBC! – Comments in configs

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Config Comments

There are a few things that are in WIN-T that are not explained in school. You either find yourself figuring it out or being told by another Warrant. How many of you have noticed that there are configurations available for all your equipment in TXT format? How many of you use them to blow in configurations when replacing gear from your spares? How many of you have read all the comments?

Which Way Do I Go SIPR Edition (Changing Routing)

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WIN-T Routing with FDMA

A couple of weeks ago we talked about what affect changes to our network can have when we add HCLOS and other links between nodes. In that article, we talked exclusively about NIPR traffic going across the network and didn’t mention anything about SIPR. So what happens with our SIPR traffic if we install a HCLOS link?