Do you have to have a clearance to be in charge of commo equipment

If you are going to be handling COMSEC then yes, but if you are just going to be the radio operator then it is not required. If your the COMMO rep then what you really will be asked to do is become the guy who learns how to operate and to a small degree troubleshoot the equipment. The purpose of the commo rep is to eliminate 30 different people from each platoon going to the Company or Battalion rep. It is done so that you can be the POC for those 30 and you will then be the 1 guy from that Platoon going to higher for COMMS issues. You should try to learn as much as you can though and have a goal of trying to resolve as many issues as you can at your level so that your higher can focus on larger and broader issues. Hope that helps

It is a rare occurrence that Soldier managing Signal equipment would not be required a clearance of at least "SECRET".

It's in AR 380-40, SGT McBride. As 1SG (Join to see) stated, the radio itself doesn't require a clearance. The COMSEC keys that you use to fill the radio for cipher text and frequency hopping, etc., do require a minimum of a Secret clearance.