new to the trade

[Sig_Des]

i second that motion

third :cheers:

 

[Radop]

i second that motion

On my second posting there, my 10th year in Ktown. :cheers:

 

[Rafe]

I'm going to give you a HUGE piece of advice, you would do well to follow it.

When you are in the field, take down your damn whips, antenna's, and anything else you put on top of your Rad van, when you move out. Reason being, if you drive under a Over head crossing that a Line det set up, and you end up waking them up at 3 am, when its cold and raining because YOU pulled it down, chances are you will get your head chewed off big time. I've seen it, and Ive done it.

So to save grief, and to save yourself from splicing in the middle of the night and trying to rehang it take down anything that will rip a crossing down. Also if you back up onto some line, and it gets stuck in your axel chances are your going to be helping to relay that gap of line if its at night.

So either watch it, or have a case of beer handy if you think your going to screw up. lol

Seriously though, a good piece of advice is to laugh alot, when you get shit on take it lightly and always carry a note pad. It seems at least in my unit that sig ops are always getting commands they need to remember.

 

[luck881]

That's excellent advice... especially if your telepathic powers allow you to maintain communications on the move without the use of radios....

 

[Rafe]

Im sure you have whips that are, with the truck less then 18 feet tall. Its dead simple to figure it out. Its just on exercise 7 out of 10 times its Sig ops ruining our line which makes us run out and fault find, then fix the break. Some dets leave their huge ass whips on when they dont need to.

 

[luck881]

Rest assured, if they're on exercise and moving, they need their antennas mounted.  In this training area, vehicles alot taller than LSVW's (with antennas mounted) drive under wire (and fibre) crossings all the time and don't pull them down as much as you make it sound.  Maybe you could instead say for him to be more careful of your crossings.  And when he sees the orange tape they're invariably marked with, to dismount and make sure his vehicle can pass without making contact if he's unsure of the height.  Don't tell him to do something you know he can't, just so you don't miss out on sleep on an exercise.

 

[Rafe]

Rest assured, if they're on exercise and moving, they need their antennas mounted.   In this training area, vehicles alot taller than LSVW's (with antennas mounted) drive under wire (and fibre) crossings all the time and don't pull them down as much as you make it sound.   Maybe you could instead say for him to be more careful of your crossings.   And when he sees the orange tape they're invariably marked with, to dismount and make sure his vehicle can pass without making contact if he's unsure of the height.   Don't tell him to do something you know he can't, just so you don't miss out on sleep on an exercise.

In all honesty, I dont know much about the Sig Op trade, as much as my unit harps on doing cross training. As far as I was told they can take the whips off when they move from position to position. or that at least they didnt NEED the whips up while moving.

Its more then loosing sleep as well, I remember one exercise a Rad van backed up on the line I had layed durining the day, and it was hidden and tied down with tie backs and all the precautions that were needed, and I was up for another 4 hours trying to make it so there were field phones from the Alpha troop CP to the Support troop CP working, only to have an officer move the field phone and wonder why it wasnt working an hour later, he ripped out the Line from the phone, so I had to get up again and fix it. THen when morning hit, a Sig det pulled down an overhead crossing. It had to be respliced and re crossed.

Im sure you can understand where I am coming from, you end up getting a lack of sleep, you get really really aggravated with situations and its not so much that its hard to do cause its not, its just time consuming and you get pissed when you have to do it over and over again. Im sure Sig ops have a similar problem when something goes wrong with their machines know what I mean? Its just the simple things that might not seem like a lot, like watching for crossings that help out the most.....dont really know what Line can do to help out sig ops durining an exercise cept run field phones from truck to truck.....durining non tacticle we can do a fair ammount for them back at base.

either way.....watch for orange tape. lol

 

[Radop]

I'm going to give you a HUGE piece of advice, you would do well to follow it.

When you are in the field, take down your darn whips, antenna's, and anything else you put on top of your Rad van, when you move out. Reason being, if you drive under a Over head crossing that a Line det set up, and you end up waking them up at 3 am, when its cold and raining because YOU pulled it down, chances are you will get your head chewed off big time. I've seen it, and Ive done it.

So to save grief, and to save yourself from splicing in the middle of the night and trying to rehang it take down anything that will rip a crossing down. Also if you back up onto some line, and it gets stuck in your axel chances are your going to be helping to relay that gap of line if its at night.

So either watch it, or have a case of beer handy if you think your going to screw up. lol

Seriously though, a good piece of advice is to laugh alot, when you get crap on take it lightly and always carry a note pad. It seems at least in my unit that sig ops are always getting commands they need to remember.

Hey their job is to put it up beyond our antennas.  They don't, they deserve to be woke up to do it properly.

 

[Radop]

Rafe -

I have been doing this job for 12 yrs and if that is how that unit does it, I would like to talk to the reg force advisers for not correcting them.  Antennas stay on when moving especially in a brigade road move.

 

[Sig_Des]

No Antennaes up on a move = No comms on the move = potential for mass clusterf*ck

 

[armyguy62]

Back to the original question.... I am an ex-Radio Tech / LCIS tech but worked in a couple of Sig Tp/Pl's in my day so here is my kick at the cat...

Pay close attention to everything work related, you will quickly get a feel for who is checked out and who is full of poo. The MCpl Det Commanders got to be MCpls and Det Commanders for a reason... learn from them. My first posting (2RCR) I asked to deploy with the RRB for an ex because they wanted a Tech and the MCpl Rad Op I respected most was the Det Comd. I learned more in 2 weeks in the back of a track simply by talking with this guy than I thought possible. By benefitting from his experience I became far better at voice procedure, better in the field, better at maintaining an APC, gained a far greater respect for the Rad Ops I worked with than I otherwise might have and I became a better technician.

As was said before, learn to filter. I think you will quickly learn who has their poop in a group and who doesn't. Best of luck, V.V.V.

 

[Radop]

armyguy hit the nail on the head.  You will learn quickly who knows what they are talking about and who doesn't.  Try to work with them and avoid the ones who don't quite have two brain cells to rub together.

As much as I hate to admit that I like a tech (hehe), I have had the opertunity to work with some very good ones.  Instead of talking down to us Rad Ops or Sig Ops, they asked questions about what we thought was wrong with the piece of equipment.  The ones I talked to said it often saved them hours of work trying to get the radio to replicate the problem especially with the TCCCs system.

 

[armyguy62]

Radop brings to mind one further point... if you do not have a sense of humour, get to the QM asap and get issued one. It may be the most valuable piece of kit you have. It may not protect your life but it will certainly protect your sanity. You also might want to hold off on drinking with your first Troop or Platoon for a while (until you have built up a tolerance to booze)... they aren't called "Sigs Pigs" for nothing.

 

[Sig_Des]

hopefully you'll have built up your tolerance by the end of your 3's in Kingston. I actually spent about 1200$ in booze in one 2-week period.

God*MN do I love pulling a Sig Pig night!

 

[Radop]

1200/6000 spent on booze?  Not a productive summer.  You just pissed it away, lol.  On my 3s, I think we went out once every couple of weeks but we were a bunch of married guys (average age of 26) with only 6 people who weren't married.  I know how boring.  lol.

 

[meanjoe]

That's excellent advice... especially if your telepathic powers allow you to maintain communications on the move without the use of radios....

LOL Thats awsome!!!! Just tie the darn things down. Advice hummmm.... Listen, right down what you can, dont say repeat (except where I am with the guns) Become good at making your coffee. Eat when you have a chance and when in doubt rack out. And your in luck they re vamped the 3's and 5's.... man the 5's are only 35 traning days now.... whats with that. its was like 90 training days when I did it. Oh since your a newbie thats like 4.5-5 months since weekends dont count. Now its like 1.75 months. Anyway have fun and make sure they dont put you in a squadron for your first posting..... go Tac Rad you need the field time and the tours... settle down later.  Good luck. ---- SHOT OVER, SHOT OUT.

 

[Sig_Des]

1200/6000 spent on booze?   Not a productive summer.   You just pissed it away, lol.   On my 3s, I think we went out once every couple of weeks but we were a bunch of married guys (average age of 26) with only 6 people who weren't married.   I know how boring.   lol.

Well, productive...I did get my 3s qualification...coming home with money, not productive at all. We had a pretty drunk course. As long as we showed up for PT and did our work, though...

 

[CdnGalaGal]

We had a pretty drunk course.

Ah, so that's why you guys smelled either like puke or like wh*res in the morning with all that cologne! I remember standing just outside the rooms some mornings and watching you all sway in place... :

Try to save the money you make. You might just need it later. Kingston is a place where it's notoriously hard to save up for that car (or that nifty computer with all the cool little bells and whistles a hardcore gamer might want) because the $ spent on booze, movies, restaurants, and cabs racks up so fast.

On your ex's, KEEP YOUR WEAPON IN REACH AT ALL TIMES (except when you are on the top of the truck) and for the love of god keep tabs on your kit.

Oh, and everyone's got it right when they say to have a sense of humour. You might get a lot of cock. We just used to call it Communication Oriented Corrective Kit. No matter what, keep smilin'  ;D

 

[Sig_Des]

You might get a lot of ****. We just used to call it Communication Oriented Corrective Kit. No matter what, keep smilin'   ;D

Or Confirmation of Critical Knowledge

 

[sig_cs101]

Try to save the money you make. You might just need it later. Kingston is a place where it's notoriously hard to save up for that car

I'd have to agree. on my 3's kingston had the habit of sucking dry the paychecks. he he and that calls for early sleeping...... not that it does anything different .  the ones that did go out had a tendency to come back wasted and wake everybody else up