621st CRSS Airmen innovate radio procedures

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Robert Waggoner
  • 621st Contingency Response Wing Public Affairs
JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. --  

The 621st Contingency Response Support Squadron radio section is a sprawling office, stocked with cubicles, computers, and large rotating panels that house communications equipment. Beeps and chirps bounce around the large room as Senior Airman Christopher Shubin, a mobile command, control, and communications technician with the 621st CRSS, prepares radios.

 

Last October, the 621st CRSS was scheduled to receive approximately  332 Army Navy Portable Radio Communications 152A Multiband Radios to replace the current model that the 621st Contingency Response Group rely on, but due to the many phases and nuances of equipment processing, the radios were delayed.

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“We needed these radios because the old ones were malfunctioning or had issues, and we wanted to replenish our unit type code’s as fast as possible for use in deployments,” Shubin said.

 

The 621st CRSS radio section, led by Capt. Reginald Hargrove and Master Sgt. Ira Norman, with help from Senior Airman Blake Soule of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst’s 87th Logistics Readiness Squadron, worked to receive the radios as quickly as possible. Once the radios were received, Shubin faced a challenge getting them fully mission capable for immediate use for contingency operations.

 

“We are required to do an acceptance inspection. If the radios are going to be in use, you have a daily preventative maintenance inspection, a self test, corrosion inspection, and a software validation,” Shubin said.

 

According to Shubin, the process usually requires 368 man-hours, but the alert cycle for the 621st CRG required these radios to be ready immediately. So he devised a plan that streamlined the process to just two days.

 

“Since we had a 184 radios, I wanted to do a little more than half the first day and the other half the next,” Shubin said.

 

Using an assembly line process, Shubin began by charging them all across 16, six bay chargers for 24 hours. The next morning he performed the self test function for on half and a software validation on the other half, then vice versa. In less than a week, the new radios were integrated into four critical UTC’s which rely on these radios to be mission capable.

 

“What took the longest was changing and confirming the passwords which is like old school texting,”  Shubin said.

 

“It’s tough to describe how impressed, and proud I am of the 621st CRSS Communication Flight; The team is always finding new and innovative ways to accomplish the mission,” said Lt. Col. Marc Woodworth, commander of the 621st CRSS, “The critical thinking and hard work they displayed here only reinforces my belief there is, quite simply, nothing they can’t accomplish.”