Radio Equipment Repairer

As a 94E Radio Equipment Repairer, formerly the Radio and Communications Security (COMSEC) Repairer, you kept secure communications alive. You performed field and sustainment level maintenance on radio receivers, transmitters, communications security (COMSEC) equipment, and Controlled Cryptographic Items (CCI). When a SINCGARS set went down, a crypto fill would not load, or a manpack radio failed a checks-and-services, you were the soldier who traced the fault to the board, swapped the module, and brought the link back. That work runs on a Secret clearance, an EL line score of at least 102, and a certification as a COMSEC equipment repairer under AR 25-12.

The training pipeline is real depth, not a weekend course. After Basic Combat Training, 94Es complete 16 weeks of Advanced Individual Training at Fort Eisenhower, Georgia (formerly Fort Gordon), split between the classroom and hands-on benches. You learned to read interactive electronic technical manuals, drive test, measurement, and diagnostic equipment (TMDE), run test program sets, and isolate failures down to the component. You also handled cryptographic keying material under accountability rules most civilian technicians never touch.

Civilian employers value this background because it is rare. RF and COMSEC repairers understand secure radio, encryption hardware, and signal flow at a depth that takes years to build outside the military. Companies that design and build communications gear, two-way radio shops, public-safety radio integrators, broadcast operations, and defense electronics depots all hire for exactly these skills. If you want to see how the Army's signal and electronic-maintenance fields map to civilian work, start with the military to civilian career crosswalk, then compare your path to the 25U Signal Support Systems Specialist and 25E Electromagnetic Spectrum Manager pages, which share the RF and spectrum side of your world.

I spent a stretch in tech sales after the Navy, and I have watched RF and COMSEC repairers walk into technical-sales roles most engineers cannot fill. You understand secure comms and RF systems at a level the sales engineer across the table usually does not, and that credibility opens doors at companies selling crypto, network gear, and radio systems. The trick is translating bench work into outcomes a hiring manager reads as money saved and uptime kept. — Brad Tachi, Navy Diver veteran & BMR founder

The strongest direct match is commercial and industrial electronics repair. The Bureau of Labor Statistics groups your closest civilian work under Electrical and Electronics Installers and Repairers, where the median wage was $71,270 in May 2024 (BLS OEWS). Inside that family, Telecommunications Equipment Installers and Repairers earned a median of $64,310, and the field is shifting from copper toward fiber, small-cell, and IP-based systems, so technicians who can read a schematic and isolate a fault keep their value even as the tools change.

If you want to stay close to radio and antenna work, Radio, Cellular, and Tower Equipment Installers and Repairers keep two-way radio, cellular, and broadcast transmitting gear running. BLS projects continued demand here tied to communications-infrastructure construction, even while the broader telecom-technician category is projected to decline about 3 percent from 2024 to 2034 (BLS OOH). That split matters: the antenna and transmitter side is healthier than the copper side, and your tower-and-RF experience points you at the growing part.

Higher-paying lanes open once you add an associate degree or vendor certifications. Electrical and Electronic Engineering Technologists and Technicians earned a median of $77,180 (BLS OEWS May 2024) supporting design and test labs, and Avionics Technicians earned a median of $81,390 keeping aircraft communication and navigation systems certified. Computer Network Support Specialists, a natural step for 94Es who lean into the IP side of modern radios, earned a median of $73,340. For where these careers are growing fastest, the best tech careers for veterans without a degree guide breaks the market down by entry path. You can line your experience up against a target job in minutes with the military resume builder. Veterans coming from related Marine and Air Force shops, like the Marine 2841 Ground Radio Repairer and Air Force 1D7X2 RF Transmissions, compete for the same civilian roles, so the bar you are clearing is set by them too.

Your bench experience converts cleanly into the federal electronics-maintenance series, and veterans' preference plus an active Secret clearance makes you competitive on day one. The closest fit is GS-0856 Electronics Technician, which covers troubleshooting, calibration, and repair of communications and electronic systems for agencies like the Army, Navy, FAA, and DoD depots. Many 94Es qualify at the GS-7 to GS-11 range depending on how their resume documents independent fault isolation and systems-level work.

On the trades side of the federal pay system, the Wage Grade series fit hands-on repair work that is paid hourly rather than on the GS schedule. WG-2604 Electronics Mechanic and WG-2606 Electronic Industrial Controls Mechanic both map to soldiers who repaired equipment at the module and component level. Depot and arsenal jobs at places like Tobyhanna Army Depot, which runs a dedicated COMSEC line, hire heavily from this background. If the GS and WG distinction is new to you, the 10 federal job series every veteran should search guide explains how to find both on USAJOBS.

Two adjacent series widen the search. GS-0391 Telecommunications fits soldiers who managed the network and transmission side, and GS-2210 Information Technology Management fits 94Es who leaned into the IP-radio and network configuration tasks. Federal hiring rewards specificity, so spell out the exact systems, test equipment, and clearance level on your application. The federal resume builder formats your experience to OPM standards, and the federal resume keywords by job series guide gives you the language each series screens for. Soldiers from the Navy IC Interior Communications Electrician rating chase several of these same GS targets.

If you are staying in electronics or RF repair, your terminology translates directly. A two-way radio shop, a tower company, or a defense depot already speaks COMSEC, TMDE, and CCI, so you do not need to soften the language for them. This section is for careers OUTSIDE radio and electronics repair, where a hiring manager has never heard of a SINCGARS set and will not connect "COMSEC repairer" to the skills they actually need.

The fix is to describe the outcome, not the acronym. A program manager reading your resume cares that you kept critical systems available under deadline pressure, not which fill device you used. Translate the work into business results and standard civilian terms. Below are real 94E tasks rewritten for non-technical and cross-industry roles. For a deeper reference, the 50 military terms translated to civilian language glossary covers the phrases that confuse civilian recruiters most.

One caution: do not bury your technical depth when you apply to technical-sales or engineering-support roles. There, the jargon is an asset, because it proves you can speak to the customer's engineers as a peer. Match the translation to the audience. The convert your NCOER into resume bullets guide walks through pulling accomplishments from your evaluations, and the military resume builder applies the translation automatically as you go.