ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam -- Airmen from the 51st Combat Communications Squadron, currently deployed in support of the 11th Air Task Force, had a chance to flex their technical skills while participating in the annual exercise Noble Skywave Oct. 21-23, 2025. The competition, which is hosted by the Canadian Army, challenges participants to contact different radio stations around the world using various High Frequency radio techniques.
While most teams that participated were composed of Airmen who work with HF radio in their day-to-day duties, the 51st CBCS team was a little different, according to team organizer Senior Airman Robert Henry, 51st CBCS radio frequency transmissions technician. Of the 11-member team, only three Airmen had experience with HF radio. Instead, Henry and his co-lead, Senior Airman Aniya Gaines trained Airmen from the 51st CBCS and 11th Combat Air Base Squadron from other duty backgrounds, such as networking and cyber security.
“This let us support that mission ready Airman concept,” Henry said. “I could train them and have them do the whole exercise while teaching them HF.”
Henry, who had participated in the competition before at his home station of Robins Air Force Base, registered the team to compete, hosted a two-day training class, coordinated a location and prepared the team to set up the necessary equipment. While the 51st CBCS had most of the required equipment, Henry coordinated with Andersen’s 644th Combat Communications Squadron to borrow some necessary supplies so that they could participate. He was especially thankful to Staff Sgt. Matthew Spissak, Joint Communications Support Element, who crafted mission plans for participating teams, as well as Staff Sgt. Dominic Torres, the 644th CBCS’ POC.
After navigating through an austere location and battling intense rain showers, the team successfully set up their HF communications antenna and accumulated points by contacting dozens of other stations, some as far away as South America and Europe. The team finished No. 154 out of 289 teams—which Henry said was still impressive given his teammates’ short training timeline.
“The cool thing was that our team, who had almost no HF background, was able to beat a good chunk of teams who did have that background,” Henry said. “I’m really proud of them. They did a really good job. Even after getting rained on, and having puddles in our boots for three hours, they still wanted to keep going. They were really committed to accomplishing the task and seeing how communications worked.”
Airman 1st Class Patrick Collins, client systems technician, 11th CABS, was one of the non-radio Airmen who participated in the competition. He said he enjoyed learning about how HF radio waves can travel across the world.
“It was an overall great experience with great people squeezing in some fun while out in the field learning new skills,” he said.
By training members from two squadrons and five duty backgrounds, Henry helped to further develop mission ready Airmen across the force by training members on system capabilities, HF theory and antenna set up.
“I’m proud of the 51st CBCS and 11th CABS Airmen,” said 1st Lt. Iris Siegmund, 51st CBCS flight commander. “They worked hard to learn the fundamentals, and it showed in their final placement during the competition!”