Careers

Career Description

Communication is a vital key to any mission's success. Commanders must monitor a unit's status and progress and send orders as needed. Forward units need to be able to report back, warn commanders of new situations and coordinate with other units in the field. Cable and Antenna Systems specialists make sure all this can happen clearly and securely from anywhere in the world. When lives are on the line, there's no room for a busy signal, and your job is to make sure there isn't one.

Career Tasks

• Install, maintain, reconstitute, remove and modify copper core, coaxial, waveguide and fiberoptic cable and antenna systems
• Climb antenna support structures and wooden poles to various heights for maintenance and installation actions on cable and antenna systems
• Install and maintain dedicated local area network (LAN) and wide area network (WAN) media distribution systems, including distribution system interior wiring
• Use drawings, task lists, instructions and technical data to work on copper core, coaxial, waveguide, fiberoptic cable and antenna systems
• Terminate copper core and fiberoptic cables on main distribution frames and interface equipment
• Operate and perform maintenance on tools, test equipment, auxiliary equipment and vehicles such as backhoes, trenchers, cable trailers, cable reel trucks and antenna construction vehicles
• Locate, repair and replace faulty closures in copper core, waveguide, coaxial, and fiberoptic cable systems
• Install, maintain and mark paths of buried cable systems

Relevant Interests & Skills

• Mechanics
• Electronics
• Maintenance and Repair
• Problem-solving
• Mathematics
• Physics
• Information Technology

Training

After eight-and-a-half weeks of Basic Military Training, every Airman goes to technical training to learn their career. Here's the basic information about Cable and Antenna Systems technical training:

School location: Sheppard AFB [TX]

Length of course: 80 days

College degree earned: Electronic Systems Technology

College credits earned: 22