Germany
In 2008 I started my own business. For the last years I have been serving 3 customers: Stratos, Maqsat and Vertex. I have designed networks, found solutions for Satellite Dish tracking problems, set up a satellite network for a customer in Angola and maintained / managed satellite capacity. I installed and commissioned a VSAT terminal on board of the pipelaying vessel Hermod. I have commissioned several satellite antennas from 4.5m up to 11m, including uplinking, tracking, and de-icing. I am used to work with people with various cultural backgrounds, and I am seeing these differences as challenges (most of the time).
In this job, i have been half of the time in the field in Afghanistan, and the other half of the time at the office in Rotterdam. I was responsible for 4 locations in Afghanistan, with a total of about 2500 Dutch and Australian military customers. In the field, I was responsible for finishing installation and configuration of a satellite link, router and wireless LAN network. I did the project management of a network migration towards a new architecture for these networks in Afghanistan. This involved project planning, logistics, communication towards suppliers and customers and handling the actual migration in the field. Of course spare material had to be available, and included instruction for the military staff how to exchange when I was in the Netherlands.
Satellite Technician. In this job I was responsible for operating and maintaining about 35 satellite links in Liberia. I have been building up this network, using pre-assembled satellite equipment. I have optimised the satellite usage, introduced advanced modulation schemes and remote control. This made this satellite network the most available and efficient of all UN peace keeping missions. I have done site surveys, planning, installation and commissioning of many satellite stations in the most remote areas of this country. Together with my colleague we were managing our unit, and grew from 4 to 12 persons. I have transferred a lot of my satellite knowledge to my colleagues. I made proposals for product innovation for head quarters in New York, and challenged logistics and procurement when required.
At Xantic Station 12, I was the senior designer of private satellite networks for governmental and defense organizations. My customers were the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs, royal Dutch army, UNDP, and 1st German Dutch army corpse. I made technical proposals for sales, support product development, 3rd line network management and I maintained the leases of satellite capacity. I make link budgets and have optimized space usage for our customers. I have worked with equipment from major manufacturers like Hughes and ND Satcom. I worked with TDM-TDMA, DAMA, SCPC and wide band TDMA equipment. I designed networks for ISAF Afghanistan, KFOR in Kosovo and UNDP sites in Africa. I was involved in the renewing the equipment for the royal Dutch army, switching over to NDSatcom SkyWAN IDU 3000 and make it work in Iraq.