After listening to the MARS argument going on in here, I did a little
looking around.

If you wish to participate in Army Mars, the qualifications a

Eligibility

The applicant must -

* Be 17 years of age or older. (Signature of parent or legal
guardian is required when an applicant is under 18 years of age.)
* Be a United States Citizen or resident alien. (Possess a valid
amateur radio license issued by the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) or other competent U.S. Authority.)
* Possess a station capable of operating on MARS VHF and/or HF
frequencies.
* Agree to operate a minimum of 12 hours per calendar quarter with
6 hours being on VHF and or HF networks.

Source: http://www.asc.army.mil/mars/join.htm

Navy/Marine Corps MARS

Eligibility to Join NAVMARCORMARS
An applicant must:

1. be 18 years of age or older,
2. be a United States Citizen or Legal Resident Alien,
3. possess a valid amateur radio license issued by the Federal
Communications Commission or other competent U.S. authority --
Technician class or above, and
4. possess a station capable of operating on the MARS HF frequencies
(2.0 - 30 Mhz).

Source: http://navymars.org/


Notes from the Washington State Army MARS webpages as to what MARS is:

Welcome to the Washington State Army Military Affiliate Radio System
(MARS) Website.

The Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS) is an organization of FCC
licensed Amateur radio operators who work with military stations for the
furthering of professional communications and electronics. Washington
State Army MARS is part of US Army MARS.

Source: http://wa.mars.hfradio.org/

Plus,

MARS is used as a training ground for use of Military communications
procedures THe MARS operators provide a pool of trained operators for
communications alternatives.

Many people look at MARS as a morale booster for sending MARS grams to
military personnel, but besides their obvious use, the messages serve as
training for operating skills.

If a person doesn't like or agree with that statement, they can take it
up with the website owners, I just paraphrased from them.

I couldn't get to the Air Force MARS site, but the localized AF sites
said basically the same thing.


In looking at the purposes and the qualifications for MARS service, a
person needs to be a licensed Radio amateur to participate as part of
the group that are training their skills in the desired operations.

No doubt that on the Military side of things, there is a trained
operator or operators that may or may not be a Ham. I'm not certain of
the details of this, but these people are already trained in the
protocols needed, so that is just a part of their job. They are the
connection point, as it were.

If we try to distill what exactly MARS is, it is a training ground for
non-military operators in military technique. These operators in
training are licensed Amateurs.

In that light, it becomes pretty evident that the Amateurs are what it
is all about. Without licensed Amateur Radio operators there might be an
analog of the service, but it would almost certainly be called something
else, the the operators would already be trained in operations, which
would call into question the need for such a program at all!

The only thing left is to examine the statement that Steve is
continuing to get his chops busted over:

"Sorry Hans, MARS IS Amateur Radio,"

Strictly speaking, One is not necessarily a member of MARS by virtue of
having an amateur license.

However, if a person was a civilian, they might be hard pressed to be a
member unless they had such a license.

Certainly, the amateur radio operator receiving training in the proper
traffic handling is the purpose of MARS.

So where one might want Steve to add "a part of" between "is" and
"amateur", I would remind everyone that this was in the context of a
reply to our good Hans, who has been known to engage in a bit of
hyperbole his own good self.

So whatever you think about that statement, It is pretty hard to
imagine a program without the intended participants.

In other words.............

- Mike KB3EIA -