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When problems 'byte,' focus on Comm

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Stacy Fowler
  • 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq --  For most military servicemembers and civilians at Joint Base Balad, their computers, satellites, radios, radars and other communication equipment are the life blood of operations.

Non-stop information is sent over airwaves, through cables and into space from the smallest bit to the biggest terabyte.

So what happens when a problem starts to take a "byte" out of your kilobytes?

The answer is the 332nd Expeditionary Communications Squadron Joint Client Service Center and the Communications Focal Point, commonly called the "Comm Help Desk." These Airmen, Soldiers and civilians are the "gatekeepers" to every communication bit, wave and 01010101-sequence support request on Balad.

"We are your starting point for anything Comm related, from AFN issues to computer problems," said Tech. Sgt. Mickey Gibbs, 332nd ECS CFP NCO in charge. "We take all calls for outages from radars to radios. When it comes to these types of issues, if we can't fix it with you over the phone we'll start a trouble ticket and send it through one of the back shops."

Being in a deployed environment can be almost murder on the equipment here, said Sergeant Gibbs, and when that equipment is very sensitive to dirt, heat and water it's even more challenging keeping it running.

"We're in a rough environment for communications equipment, and sometimes the system goes down," said Sergeant Gibbs. "We funnel all those calls to the AFN shop, and they take care of it quickly."

About 1,800 calls and face-to-face visits come through the JCSC and CFP a week, said Senior Master Sgt. Jamie Killingsworth, JCSC NCO in charge. Most of the issues can be resolved right away over the phone.

"They'll call us for help, and our teams will walk them through potential solutions," said Sergeant Killingsworth, a native of Beavercreek, Ohio, deployed from Springfield Beckley Municipal Airport, Ohio. "A lot of times it's just a patch or an update that hasn't gone through properly. With computers, there are a billion lines of code just for our main operating system - all it takes is one little number to mess everything up."

Sometimes though, a computer issue is more complicated or the AFN connections need hands-on work. This is when the JCSC and CFP take it further down the spiral of communications support. Getting trouble tickets into the system is critical to ensuring good customer service, said Sergeant Killingsworth.

"Please don't try to contact the back shops directly, they will just send you back to us," he said. "When we give you a trouble ticket, that is your way of knowing your issue is in the system and we are keeping track of the status."

Every person in the 332nd ECS has a specialty, said Sergeant Gibbs. The people in the JCSC and CFP are the voices and faces the customer will hear and see when they need help; these Airmen, Soldiers and civilians hold the key to the rest of Comm.