Unit 2 Research Paper 1

Submitted By ChristopherSage-Hern
Words: 590
Pages: 3

Troubleshooting equipment in the military can be extremely difficult at times, especially being communication equipment. In April of 2010, I encountered a problem where my STT (Satellite Transportable Terminal) would not lock onto the satellite we were supposed to be shooting to. I deployed the STT and it would search for the satellite. It would tell me that it is locked onto the satellite. I call the satellite controller for conformation and he does not see my terminal ID shooting at the satellite. I started to become very confused along with the other 2 members of my team.
My team and I began thinking of what might be creating this issue. So first, we double-checked the information that we inserted into the STT. All of the information matched our cut sheet (sheet with all of the information needed to complete the mission). We knew that the issue wasn’t a user error on our part.
After checking to make sure we didn’t fat finger (insert wrong information), we contacted our unit to verify the cut sheet was correct. Within the unit they would occasionally send out old cut sheets that will not work with our current mission. Everything with the cut sheet is verified and we begin to think of equipment issues.
We decided the next best step would be to power the STT down properly and deploy it again. In some cases, if you do not properly shut down equipment in the military it will not power back up correctly. I noticed that when the STT said that it had locked onto the satellite again that the dish was pointed in a different direction than it was previously. We thought that we had fixed the issue and I called the satellite controller again to confirm. It was a negative confirmation again as he did not see our terminal ID. I decided that we should stow (lower the dish) and deploy it again.
I noticed the dish was pointing in another direction again once it said it was locked onto the satellite. I thought that perhaps the compass on the STT was malfunctioning. My team and I looked at the cut sheet, and find the degree at which direction we should be pointing the dish at. I