I was a 6492 Aviation PME Calibration/Repair Technician for the Marine Corps from 2003-2005 (medical honorable discharge). I've been searching every avenue I can think of to find out which standards our Cal Lab used in that time period. I'm pretty sure they started integrating ISO 17025 towards the tail end of when I was in, but have no memory of what we used before that. I'm trying to re-enter the work force and am trying to give an accurate picture of my abilities and training. A lot of job postings have "PMEL experience preferred", and I'm not sure if my tenure in the Corps would qualify or not. While I did my C school GCAMS training at Keesler AFB, I did not get the opportunity to attend the advanced calibration course there before I was discharged. Can anyone give me some clarification?
Thanks in advance!
I worked the Navy lab @AUTEC in 2005, and we used ANSI/ NCSL Z540.1-1994 (R2002), 17025, and a navy instruction I don't recall right now...
I was also 6492 working in Okinawa until 2009. Here are the standards I remember us having.
Physical/Dimensional:
We had a nice torque bench with all the different transducers to do up to 600ft/lb wrenches. Snap action, beam, and deflecting beam wrenches. Mnemonic pressure using the King Nutronics 3666+Pressure Intensifier Unit. We also had a manual hand pump system for doing oil pressure gages. We did small vacuum gages (can't remember which standard for those). We also had a surface plate and gage blocks to measure calipers and micrometers.
General Purpose Electronics:
We had several 5720A Calibrators + 5725A Amplifiers. Power Supplies, Multimeters (344401A's and 3458A's) Standard Resistors and Decade Box Resistors. Universal Counters, Function Generators, Oscilloscopes (Sampling and regular), 9500 Oscilloscope Calibrator with the Active Heads (9530) outputs signals up to 3.2GHz.
RF/µWave:
We had multiple RF Generators that ouputed up to 50GHz. Had multiple 8902A Measuring Receivers (1.3GHz) + 11793A Microwave Converters (26.5GHz), Spectrum Analyzers, Power Meters with all the different ranged Power Sensors, Fixed Attenuators, Step Attenuators, Directional Couplers, HP and LP Filters, Calibration Kits (N-Type,3.5mm,2.4mm), Power Splitters (DC-50GHz).
Your school certifications are very valuable in the civilian sector. You don't have to know how to use all that equipment to get a job but it would be in your best interest to be a sponge and learn as much as possible. I've gotten really good at programming Met/Cal procedures to automate calibrations. If you can learn this aspect it will really increase your value. Best of luck Devil Dog!!
I am a hiring manager for a calibration department and I would consider your background as meeting the requirements for 'PMEL Experience Preferred.' From my perspective PMEL (Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratory) is really identifying all military trained and experienced service members working in the field of calibration and metrology. Good luck!