Section III. TROUBLESHOOTING - TM-11-5895-878-14-P0096

TM 11-5895-878-14&P

Section III. TROUBLESHOOTING

the remote stations or the cognizant master station, for

3-9. Troubleshooting Responsibilities

rendering assistance in restoring service.

a. Technical Controller.

d. Maintenance Personnel. After faults have been

(1) The technical controller at the station

located and identified, maintenance personnel are

receiving a fault notification is responsible for

responsible for effecting necessary repairs and

determining the source of channels outages or

maintenance in accordance with appropriate technical

interruptions, and for the expeditious restoration of

manuals pertinent to the particular item of faulty

channels to minimize the loss of effective operating

equipment.

time.

(2) When a degraded condition or other

3-10. Troubleshooting Practices

trouble is encountered at a given station, the technical

controller of that station coordinates with distant

a. Fault Notification. Technical controllers are

stations, local users, and associated transmitting and

alerted to actual, or impending circuit outages by means

receiving elements in his efforts to isolate and locate the

of alarm indicator displays, by notification from the user

fault. He has primary responsibility for this action, and

of circuit deterioration or failure by a distant station

must receive full cooperation from all other station

technical controller, and as the result of testing and

technical controllers involved. When it is determined

monitoring.

that the fault is located at a distant station, or in a link

(1) The supervisory alarm subsystem provides

serving an area beyond that station, responsibility for

an alarm when failure occurs in various equipment and

locating and correcting the fault is transferred to, and

systems at the site, as a CAU, CCU, station clock, fuse

assumed by, the station technical controller primarily

panels, or the dc power system. When alerted to an

concerned.

abnormal condition by an alarm, the technical controller

and maintenance personnel must perform systematic

b. User. The user is responsible for notifying the

step-by-step monitoring, or testing of the system

responsible technical controller of all instances of

segments into, through, and out of the station, in order

service degradation evidenced by high data error rates,

to isolate the fault(s) to specific areas and/or

occasional noise bursts into the voice channels serving

equipments.

Once the trouble is defined, faulty

him, or other indications of unsatisfactory conditions.

equipment can be repaired, adjusted, or replaced, as

The user renders free cooperation to the technical

necessary.

controller in the correction of service degradation.

(2) In other instances, user service is affected

c. Communications Command Operations Center

by degraded circuit conditions. Such conditions do not

(CCOC).

activate the supervisory alarms, and consist of sporadic

(1) The CCOC monitors the progress of the

noise bursts in the circuit data error rates, or incorrect

station technical controllers in their troubleshooting

channel levels. Usually, these problems are brought to

efforts, but under normal circumstances, does not

the attention of the technical controller by the user. The

actively engage in the isolation of a fault. If however,

technical controller performs monitoring and testing

the station technical controllers encounter difficulties

routinely, as circumstances permit. However, when

and cannot restore service within a reasonable period of

notified of degrading circuit conditions by the user, other

time, the CCOC is responsible for assuming the overall

technical controllers, or maintenance personnel,

direction of the corrective actions, for providing a

monitoring and testing of the degraded circuit should be

workable solution to the problem, and for keeping circuit

initiated immediately in order to isolate and correct the

outage time to an absolute minimum.

cause of the trouble. For this purpose, the patch bays

(2) Troubles encountered on multichannel or

(test and monitor jack appearances) located in the Patch

multilink circuits often are of an accumulative nature

and Test areas, provide a means of sequential access to

and present a complicated condition for resolution. To

circuits and patching of the circuits to the QA test

determine the cause, or causes of such a condition,

center.

special link and segment tests may be required. The

b. Service Restoration. The technical controller

CCOC is responsible for determining the requirements

must use every means at his disposal to restore

for such special tests on the basis of station reports.

disrupted service as expeditiously as possible. These

The CCOC coordinates the tests, collects and analyzes

means, when available, should be used in the following

the results, and directs remedial actions as necessary.

order of priority:

(3) Unless there are definite indications of a

(1) If a spare channel is available, the

major abnormality the CCOC normally does not take

technical controller should patch the user circuit or

immediate action to inquire about circuit conditions,

group into the spare (figs. 3-1 through 3-3) while

since continuous inquiries by the CCOC impedes the

isolating and correcting the defective equipment.

troubleshooting and fault correction actions of the

(2) If a fault is identified within an item of

station technical controller and maintenance personnel.

equipment for which a standby or spare is available, the

The CCOC is responsible, however, for investigating

substitute

outages which have not been cleared after a reasonable

period off time, or if no explanation has been made by

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