Recent Articles
Volunteer to be a Radio Operator for the 2023 Marine Corps Marathon!
Calling all radio operators! We have an exciting opportunity for you to be part of a vital team supporting the upcoming 47th Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) on Sunday, October 29.
The MCM relies on approximately 150 amateur radio operators to ensure seamless communication throughout the event. Your role? Provide essential situational awareness and rapid communication across the course. Using 2m and 70 cms frequencies, accessible with a dual-band handheld radio, you’ll help maintain a smooth and safe marathon experience.
If you’ve participated in our club’s 2-meter net on Wednesday nights, you’re already well-prepared! Additional training, scheduled around two weeks before the event, will get you fully up to speed. Picture yourself stationed at a mile marker, reporting runner progress, medical situations, and assisting as needed—a firsthand role in the largest amateur radio public support event in the DC-MD-VA area.
Scott Larimer, KN4RPA, the MCM amateur radio lead, has extended an invitation to potential volunteers, emphasizing the significance of your contribution.
Ready to jump in? Here’s how:
- Register as a Ham Volunteer on the MCM Organization website: www.marinemarathon.com/volunteer.
- Head to www.hamcommunity.com/mcm-register to sign up for an MCM Ham assignment. This user-friendly platform guides you through the process step by step, offering valuable information along the way.
Curious about the experience? A training session is planned for October, and you can catch a glimpse of the event’s spirit through the MCM Ham Radio Facebook group.
For details on the event’s schedule, course map, parking, and more, visit the Marine Corps Marathon site: https://www.marinemarathon.com/.
Don’t miss this chance to combine your passion for ham radio with a meaningful contribution to the Marine Corps Marathon. Join us in making this year’s event a triumph of communication and community support!
Repeater System Update
The W4AVA repeater system is part of a broader linked system. Dave Jordan (WA3GIN) has been heading up the work on this as a labor of love for quite some time.
He has managed to put together a relatively nice linked repeater system with a couple of great friends down in the Northern Neck, Jeff KC8VFN and Andrew AF4AH, to provide awesome VHF coverage along the Potomac River from north of Great Falls to the mouth of the Potomac river and ChesapeakeBay (see attached). We fondly refer to the system as the Potomac River Repeater System (PRRS). We assume the coverage exceeds 10,000 square miles.
This linked system provides improved coverage to potential East and Southern evacuation routes from Arlington, NOVA and the NCR. It also provides hand-held VHF 5 watt radio access from the NCR to the Virginia State Emergency Operations Center in Richmond, VA.
There was nothing like this system in existence before 9/11 leaving the NCR vulnerable from an AUX COM capability perspective and to my knowledge this linked system is the only such system serving the NCR. There has been no downtime of the W4AVA repeater that was unplanned since it was activated 17+ yrs ago! The other pics are of our repeater maintenance facility here in King George. This is where we calibrate the transceivers, tune the duplexers, and program the repeater controllers, etc.
The W4KGC repeater’s Cellwave PD220-3A antenna has been upgraded to a COMSCOPSE DB-224E.
Arlington RACES Net Hams Go Portable During Winter Field Day
K3SRF, KC3ULX, and K4RT operated on battery power during a chilly, and at times, rainy winter weekend during the 2023 Winter Field Day.
Update to Club Officers
Now that we’re a few months into the new year, we’ve had our most recent board meeting and we’ve updated our club officers. As an all volunteer organization, we are very grateful for the folks that regularly participate in club activities from the club president to net control stations, each person makes a contribution to help things operate well and help us all be ready for any EMCOM situations that may come up.
It’s W4AVA’s 15th Birthday!
15 Years ago, Arlington County RACES was formed and along with it, W4AVA was registered with the FCC. Through the support of our county and the work of our most active club members, we are now the proud caretakers of our Nation’s Capital’s most powerful and widest area coverage repeater system!
RACES Training
As you probably know, there is a significant overlap between members of the ARPSC and Arlington County RACES. Our RACES is sponsored by Arlington County’s Office of Emergency Management. our goal is to provide support to augment county communications in the case of an emergency.
To join RACES, there are several steps:
- Get Training in RACES
- Take a RACES test
- Submit your application and receive a background check from the Arlington County Police
RACES Training is available on our website. The training provides for you to learn about several important topics including emergency communications, emergency preparedness and communications procedures.
We are not often activated to help out in an emergency. When one is in such a situation, the training that he/she has had really pays off. Thanks to training and our regular net exercises, our emergency nets can be well-run and and organized.
We look forward to your review of the training materials and your application to help support Arlington.
