In article , Mike Coslo
writes:

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

Did you use the links I posted twice? No matter, a simple search
for "Military Affiliate Radio System" will turn up the same things.

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

You can find that in Army Regulation AR 25-6.


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).

That's in USN-USMC Communications Instruction NTP 8(C).

Please read the fine print on "who may be a member." :-)

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.

Try not to get defensive BEFORE someone objects... :-)


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

You can get USAF MARS Air Instructions at AFCA, Air Force Communication
Agency, Scott AFB. The number ID is AFI 33-106.

At the AFCA website you can get a very good history of Air Force
communications titled "From Flares To Satellites." If you don't
mind a 12+ MB download, then I'd recommend it for history of
communications in the Air Force.


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.

Mostly, I think, they are just having fun playing around. :-)

Like grown-ups playing at being sojers (or swabbies or whatever).

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.

You may not be aware of it, but there are a whole bunch of DoD
Directives and individual service branch Regulations which are
intended PRINCIPALLY for Public Relations work, to promote
the "good" side of the military with/without radio amateurs.

If you read the Army Communicator write-up on "Grecial Firebolt
2002" then you will understand that MARS can function quite well
on its own without civilian radio amateurs.

DoD has been highlighting Emergency Preparedness since
before 11 Sep 01 and MARS, as a Military Affiliate structure, can
circumvent some of the normal protocols required with regular,
organic military units communicating with other government
agencies. "Grecian Firebolt 2002" was one such exercise and
involved Guard units as well as MARS.

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.

Not for manual telegraphy... :-)

Face it, Mike, MARS is basically for inter-government communications
so that military can talk to everyone else in government without going
through the usual channels.

Once upon a time, way back three decades ago, MARS was excellent
on providing phone patches for Vietnam service personnel in Vietnam
being able to talk to their friends and loved ones. MARS was handling
about 42,000 such phone patches a month back then.

Was there "training" in making a phone patch? Did MARS teach the
civilian members how to dial a telephone? :-)

All the "training" is simply Following Procedure which is amply provided
in examples in many different military training manuals. Don't make it
into some BFD because it isn't. Procedure is simply organization to
get a message through to the recipient by the most expeditious means.

In that light, it becomes pretty evident that the Amateurs are what it
is all about.

Public relations.

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 "A" in MARS stands for AFFILIATE, not 'amateur.'

Back in 1925 when the U.S. Army organized the immediate
predecessor of MARS, the AARS, there weren't many "radio operators"
around, especially those with manual telegraphy skills. The
psychomotor skill of manual telegraphy does need lots of training
to become proficient at it...but MARS no longer uses manual
telegraphy.

If "MARS is amateur radio," then it should have civilian head-
quarters such as Newington. But, the Army Hq is at Fort
Huachuca, AZ, under NETCOM and the USAF MARS Hq is
at Scott AFB.

If "MARS is amateur radio," then it should be defined somewhere
in Title 47 C.F.R. and thus regulated by the FCC. It isn't.


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,"

Nursie "busted his own chops" when he REFUSED to yield on
a WRONG statement.

Strictly speaking, One is not necessarily a member of MARS by virtue of

having an amateur license.

MARS "membership" (six-month voluntary "duty") is voluntary.

MARS callsigns are distinctly different from civilian amateur radio
callsigns.

MARS doesn't operate IN the civilian amateur radio bands.

However, if a person was a civilian, they might be hard pressed to be a

member unless they had such a license.

Who cares? :-)

Military communications function just dandy WITHOUT any MARS
structure. They don't use any manual telegraphy, either...:-)

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

Okay, "proper traffic handling" to keep an RTTY net up and running?
Dialing a telephone for a phone patch from some distant military
outpost that doesn't have any DSN or Internet connection? :-)

"Proper traffic handling" is for Military Police units.

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.............

The "M" in MARS stands for MILITARY.

The "A" in MARS stands for AFFILIATE.

MARS is a military radio service.

See Department of Defense Directive 4650.2 dated 21 Nov 03.

LHA / WMD