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Originally Posted by Coppertop
How'd you end up liking NCTAMS? Current ADP-type IT here, have some buddies who got sent over to the soul sucking NCTAMS LANT and they absolutely hated it. Granted its Norfolk vs Hawa'ii, but how is the actual work environment I wonder?
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I absolutely LOVED it at PAC! There is definitely a difference between west coast and east coast Navy.. If you want laid back Navy, go west coast.. if you want strict, by the book, die hard Navy, go east coast. I was put into Tech Control - N34. IT's could go to JFTOC (command central), Data Center (messaging), Tech Control (troubleshooting/comms), NOC (Network Operations).. I wouldn't have minded the NOC, but definitely got lucky going to TC, I've always been pretty technical and could troubleshoot basically anything. The mentality was laid back, but we got things done.. I mean it's Hawaii.. Plus being a NCTAMS, we oversaw the entire region.. PAC being the entire west coast and far east, LANT being the east coast and Eurcent being Europe. Hawaii was awesome, but you do get island fever eventually.. but going out and enjoying the island, island hopping, etc.. definitely helps. Going to bars and clubs all the time will make the island boring fast.
I probably would have shot myself if I ended up in messaging.
If you are good and know your shit, you will get rewarded. Just watch out for the females because they are typically all about themselves and will not only get all the schools and awards, but will screw you every chance they get. Not all, but most.
We had one guy who retired.. this old school IT1.. he had his retirement ceremony in the main conference room. The CMC and master chief were there, and the other people forced to go watch.. He stood up, gave his little speech, then motioned for this girl to stand up. She went up to the podium, started to talk about the IT1, then pressed a boombox, it started playing.. she started dancing and then began stripping. Once the senior chief there realized what was going on she stopped it. He ended up going to mast, getting temporarily busted to E1 and was put on crap work until he retired. lol he said it was totally worth it though. Within 30 minutes of it happening we got calls from Lant and Eurcent because they heard about what happened.
If you could ever go to PAC, or even one of the smaller comm stations in Hawaii I would highly recommend it. Try to stay away from Guam just because the island is so damn small. It's like Hawaii, but smaller, hotter, less things to do, 35 mph speed limits, and nothing to do.
One night at PAC we were bored in Tech Control.. we had a ship coming in from deployment and going through Hawaii.. so we patch their phone lines up, and we listen in. We hear couples talking, some guy singing to his wife, stuff like that. Then one couple we listen in on, they start fighting on the phone.. so we pull the plug and disconnect them. lol They call each other and start fighting about the other person hanging up on them.. so we disconnect them again lol
We did a lot of routing circuit testing, from 1.2k up to OC trunks. One time I was testing a 1.2k audio circuit.. hook up the monitor to the receieve side, listen.. transmit side, listen.. pretty basic. This one circuit I pull up and listen.. and I get one half of a cell phone conversation.. I put on the receive side, and I hear the other half of the conversation.. so I'm just switching back and forth.. for like half an hour listening lol pretty crazy. Made me realize how unsecure our cell phones really are.
NCTAMS is dead center on the island, there is also Schofield Barracks (Army base) and an Wheeler (Air Force) all in Wahiawa. One time I got on the bus to go somewhere. The next stop 3 Army guys got on and sat around me. They start talking about their day. One guy goes "man, I had to mow the lawn for 8 hours today" another guy goes.. "yeah, I had to paint buildings all day" and the other guy says "I had to sweep sidewalks all day". I said, that sucks... we just hire civilians to do all that. lol