Electronics Technicians — ETs — maintained the communications, radar, navigation, and electronic warfare equipment aboard Navy surface ships and submarines. ET billets required work throughout the ship’s electronic equipment spaces — communications rooms, radar equipment rooms, Electronic Warfare (EW) equipment spaces, and navigation electronics spaces — in both below-deck equipment spaces and in the ship’s mast and superstructure areas. Ships built before the mid-1970s asbestos phase-down used asbestos-containing materials in the construction of electronic equipment spaces and in the mechanical systems serving those spaces, and older electronics equipment of the era used asbestos-containing materials in high-power component assemblies.

Electronics Equipment Space Environment

ETs worked in electronics equipment spaces throughout the ship:

  • Below-deck electronics equipment rooms — the communications center, radar equipment room, and electronic warfare equipment spaces on destroyers, cruisers, and carriers built before the mid-1970s phase-down had asbestos-containing overhead and bulkhead construction with asbestos in structural overhead insulation and asbestos-insulated mechanical system piping running through or adjacent to electronics equipment spaces
  • Electronics equipment air conditioning — below-deck electronics equipment spaces required precise temperature control for equipment reliability, with cooling systems serving these spaces using asbestos-insulated refrigerant or chilled water piping in older carrier and surface combatant construction

Asbestos in Older Electronics Equipment

ETs maintaining 1950s and 1960s-era electronics equipment worked with equipment that itself contained asbestos:

  • Vacuum tube transmitters — high-power radio transmitters and radar transmitters of the late-WWII through 1960s era used vacuum tubes in multi-kilowatt power amplifiers. The transmitter assemblies used asbestos-containing thermal insulation and asbestos board as electrical insulator/heat shield material in the transmitter chassis, where asbestos provided thermal isolation between high-power stages and the chassis structure
  • Radar high-power components — the high-power transmitter stages of surface search, air search, and fire control radars from the 1950s-1960s used asbestos-containing materials in transmitter cabinet construction — asbestos board in the transmitter cabinet interior providing electrical isolation between high-voltage stages and the cabinet structure
  • UHF and VHF transmitters — high-power communications transmitters in UHF and VHF bands used asbestos-insulated components in transmitter stages that generated substantial heat during full-power transmission
  • Electronic warfare equipment — some ECM and radar warning receiver equipment from the 1950s-1960s used asbestos board in component mounting and chassis construction

Shore-Based Communications Facilities

ETs at shore-based communications stations — NAVCOMMSTA facilities — worked in older communications building equipment rooms with asbestos-containing construction in the building’s mechanical systems and in older high-power HF transmitter stations with extensive high-power transmitter equipment using asbestos-containing materials.

VA Claims for ET Veterans

VA presumptive service connection under 38 CFR § 3.309(d) covers asbestos exposure aboard Navy vessels. Electronics Technicians who served in electronics maintenance billets aboard surface ships built before the mid-1970s asbestos phase-down or who maintained older vacuum tube electronics equipment with asbestos-containing components and have since been diagnosed with mesothelioma, asbestosis, or asbestos-related lung cancer may qualify for VA disability benefits.