By Staff Sgt. Joshua King, 386th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs / Published June 20, 2018
A trench is dug through bed rock at an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia, May 29, 2018. The trench is home to a new fiber optic cable that will be used to back up the network. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Joshua King)
Members of the 386th Expeditionary Communications Squadron cable and antennas team lay premature ventricular contraction pipe in a trench at an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia, May 29, 2018. The cable and antennas team is laying more than 12,000 feet of PVC to house a new fiber optic cable. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Joshua King)
A backhoe digs a trench at an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia, May 29, 2018. The 386th Expeditionary Communications Squadron dug a more than two mile trench to install a new fiber optic cable on base. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Joshua King)
The 386th Expeditionary Communications Squadron worked with the 386th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron to install new fiber optic cable at an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia.
The 386th ECS cable and antennas team began the installation of a new back-up system early this year, ensuring connectivity for the U.S. Air Force, Army and coalition partners.
“The fiber that we are installing is to support a back-up system for the network,” said Tech. Sgt. Andrew Trainer, 386th ECS cable and antenna non-commissioned officer in charge from Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. The fiber itself is called a diverse and redundant ring, it is a pretty simple project that has a significant impact.”
The cable, a little bigger than the average thumb, can support up to 144 different circuits or buildings and will reach from the network control center to another building on base, roughly 12,000 feet.
The project has gone smoothly except for ‘a few hiccups here and there,’ said Trainer.
Some of the over two mile path the team trenched was filled with rocky ground, slowing their progress greatly.
“It has been a challenging project, we didn’t expect to have to trench through bedrock,” said Trainer. “We’ve had to work a lot with civil engineering to accomplish some of these things.”
The 386th ECES assisted by providing excavator support to help break through the hard rock that was encountered, said Master Sgt. Byron Icenogle, 386th ECES pavements and equipment shop NCOIC.
“This has been a very beneficial relationship for CE. It has allowed heavy equipment operators to get time operating equipment that they may not normally get,” said Icenogle, deployed from Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.
The cable and antenna team, who began this project nearly six months ago, hope to complete it before they head home.
“The rest of our path has been surveyed and we won’t have the issues we’ve been having with the rock,” said Senior Airman Corey Wilson, 386th ECS cable and antenna technician from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
Wilson added that the new cables and conduit laid will be used when new dormitories are built. They won’t have to dig anymore trenches because of the man-holes they have placed along the path of this project.
“This team is incredible,” said Trainer. “Out of all my deployments and all of my home stations and this is the best team I’ve been on by far.”