Airmen ensure communications capability for joint, coalition success

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Michael Voss
  • 86th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
ROYAL AIR FORCE CROUGHTON, England --  A team of five Airmen from the 1st Communications Maintenance Squadron is contributing to the ultimate success of the Air Force mission and so much more by maintaining what would appear, other than some radio towers, as an empty field in England.

The Airmen are part of the 1st CMXS's Cable and Antenna Theater Maintenance Team from Kapaun Air Station, Germany, and have been traveling throughout the United Kingdom since Aug. 24 performing annual preventative maintenance inspections on antenna systems belonging to Royal Air Force Base Croughton and RAF Barford in England. 

The 30 antenna systems at these locations provide the capability for ground to air communication between bases and planes.

RAF Barford is a historic location in England, from being once used by the Royal Air Force in the 1930s to test jet engines, to being used as a bomber-staging base during World War II. The site was even the location used for filming the classic movie Twelve O'Clock High. Today it, plus Croughton, make up the communications link for the not only the Air Force but many NATO partners as well, across the Atlantic and on into Europe.

"Basically when a flight crosses the Atlantic Ocean into Europe they need communication points along the way," said Tech. Sgt. Scott Dunbar, Cable and Antenna Theater Maintenance Team, chief.

The team, part of a 24-person shop belonging to the 1st CMXS, uses tools and technical orders brought from their home station along with support equipment from other bases such as vehicles like a low profile line-truck to tighten and repair tower guy-wires. They also do corrosion control checks, system testing and function checks during their site visits.

Last year, U.S. Air Forces in Europe centralized all 2E6s in Germany, making the Cable and Antenna Theater Maintenance Team more important than ever because they're in high demand. Each member of the team is hand-picked to fill the special-duty assignment. With a 24-hour emergency response time, the Airmen know  being on the road a lot to maintain the more than 600 antennas throughout Europe has become the norm.

"Being on the team can be challenging, we deploy a lot maintaining these systems, sometimes more than 180 days a year, but these systems are vital to communications of not only aircraft transiting the Atlantic, but U.S. Strategic Command, AWACs, JSTARS, the President, even the search and rescue capabilities of NASA," said Sergeant Dunbar.

The simple location of these systems causes some unique challenges as well.

"The weather here especially causes some of the challenges we face, from causing the systems to lose reception to causing adverse working conditions," said Staff Sgt. Sean Lavely, Cable and Antenna Theater Maintenance Team member. "Sometimes the wind makes it a little dicey being up there on the tower."

But as Sergeant Dunbar explains, there are safety precautions built into the career field that prevent any unnecessary risk, such as not working on towers when winds are observed higher than 25 knots. This sometimes can cause the work to maintain and fix these systems tedious, often having to be rescheduled until the weather subsides.

"We've been here for nearly a month," said Staff Sgt. Carlos Salinas. "We have performed either inspections or some kind of maintenance on 14 towers so far." 

Although having to be on temporary duty to perform most of their job responsibilities can be tough, the capability these Airmen provide to the Air Force and its partners is invaluable.

"Without the Cable and Antenna Theater Maintenance Team and this location we would lose a significant portion of the high frequency coverage for Europe and the Atlantic Crossing," said Staff Sgt. Chet Warren, 422nd Communications Squadron ground radio member from RAF Croughton. "Any friendly country in the United Nations can use our radios, which means these guys maintain antenna systems that support not only the Air Force but much of the world's communications."

The 1st CMXS is part of the 435th Air and Space Communications Group, one of the three groups that make up the new 435th Air and Ground Operations Wing headquartered at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.