In keeping with the Commander Defence Force, Commodore Raymond King’s strategic intent of professionalizing the organization and deepening the Security Cooperation Relationship with the United States of America, twenty personnel from the Royal Bahamas Defence Force graduated in a brief ceremony after successfully completing a virtual 3-week L3 Harris HF Radio Training course on November 20, 2020 at HMBS CORAL HARBOUR.
James Bennett and Paul Johnson, the Senior Applications Engineers from L3 Harris USA, designed and delivered the 120-hr. virtual training course. The complex training design was successful because the students were provided with a highly concentrated dose of HF theory infused with actual hands-on practical exercises.
This is the second Foreign Military Funded Harris training course provided by the US Government to the Bahamas Government. The US Northern Command in conjunction with the US Embassy continues to provide state of the art Harris equipment and training to the RBDF.
The training included: In-depth instruction on HF theory and waveform propagation; The Customer Programming Application; System topology, troubleshooting and maintenance scheduling, Antenna design, System Configuration, and Deployment.
The training initiative was led by Senior Commander Carlon Bethell, Commander of the Communications Branch, and Lieutenant Lystra Bastian, who serves as the Executive Officer Communications Branch. The team of Officers and Marines are now better prepared and equipped to create, deploy and maintain a robust RBDF secured HF network throughout the RBDF’s Areas of Responsibilities.
The Harris Training initiative supports the Communications Branch’s primary goal of providing Operational Surface assets and Land units with multiple options of effective communications while embracing cutting edge technology. More importantly, the training lines up with the Commander Defence Force’s vision for the RBDF of becoming a model of excellence in guarding our heritage.
Participants were also presented with certificates of completion for their achievements during the Harris HF Graduation Ceremony.
