ARRL Webinar: An Overview of MARS - October 25, 2016

On an ARRL-hosted webinar October 25, 2016, US Air Force MARS Chief Dave Stapchuk, KD9DXM, discussed the history of the Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS) program and membership requirements for Amateur Radio operators. He also highlighted the Joint MARS Phone Patch network, which provides daily support to US armed forces. The phone patch network facilitates not only morale/welfare phone patches but routinely handles mission-related radio calls and occasionally assists US air crews with in-flight emergency phone patches when air traffic control cannot be reached.

US Army MARS Program Manager Paul English, WD8DBY, discussed the quarterly US Department of Defense (DOD) contingency communication exercises, which promote interoperability between the Amateur Radio community and the DOD. English also discussed initiatives for promoting the use of 60 meters between Amateur Radio and the federal government as well as the types of information MARS operators requested from the Amateur Radio community during the DOD communications exercise (COMEX), October 30-November 1, 2016.

Date: October 25, 2016
Hosted by ARRL's Ken Bailey, K1FUG

[Johnpalmer-eqyq]

Why don't I put a carburetor on a. Lear jet go. Ralk to. Mars in person kemper military academy us army bro.

[joeddejohn]

Would like to join. Need to get some more equipment though.

[mikemcdonald]

im curious I know this is an old post. Once you are trained can you do this from your home ham shack? Im unable physically to travel much so would love to join and learn and would make some training classes but after initial training hope that I can do from home ham shack.??? is this possible?

[lt]

Is the MARS Station still in Seoul Korea? Former Camp Youngsan

[USAFJUNKIE]

So can a technician transmit on the MARS HF frequencies if they're an active member and using them for official use only?
AKA: do you need a general class license to truly be useful?

[lomgshorts]

Being a part of Air Force MARS at one time, I found it to be horribly expensive, excessively time consuming, and I saw no useful activities done as we had done in Navy Marine Corps MARS. Same goes for Army MARS, which had done nothing in disasters like Navy MARS did during hurricane Katrina and Rita. Navy MARS did almost all the communications during those two hurricanes. I feel that now that Navy MARS is no longer, the other two services took all the work we did at that time and made it their own - stole it from us, as you would see if you were there. With the present level of technology that Amateur Radio posesses, the MARS program of today is unnecessary and irrelevant.

[lomgshorts]

Oh, and the remaining two MARS services DO NOT use MT-63 digital modes as they think it is insecure. Most MARS stations now are so susceptible to the effects of an EMP event, they would be "off air" permanently after the pulse hit them. So I ask you, what use is the MARS service when they cannot be depended upon during an EMP event, or a computer virus attack on the power grid system? Once the main power goes down, these MARS stations are useless.