innismir.net

While rolling through my RSS feeds (Hat tip to KE9v) on the train this morning, this came as shock, but not really one that I couldn’t say I didn’t see coming:

The days of Navy and Marine Corps MARS may be fast coming to an end. This, according to a directive released by the commander of the Naval Network Welfare Command. One that says that this branch of the Military Affiliate Radio Services will terminate all operations at the end of this summer. Amateur Radio Newsline’s Bruce Tennant, K6PZW, has the details:

According to the May 16th directive, the commander of the Naval Network Welfare Command has decided to sunset the Navy’s MARS mission effective September 30th. Sunset in this case means to terminate and disband. As a result, the Naval Network Welfare Command has requested that all military and civilian positions be deleted and left un-funded after that date.

MARS, for you non-hams, provides a way for families to keep in touch with deployed troops abroad via something similar to a telegram system, among other things. It’s not surprising that with the ubiquity of cell phones and Internet access in even the most far-flung areas that we’re seeing the end of MARS usefulness.

However, when I read the story, another story did pop to mind. What was Navy/Marine MARS paying attention too? Why, the fact that those new hams don’t know Morse of course!

After more than a dozen years, Morse code will soon be returning to Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS) nets. In the mid-1990s, the Department of Defense (DoD) did away with CW operation across the board — including MARS nets — as automatic systems such as the Internet, SATCOM, cell phones and e-mail became available and the payroll cost of manual operators escalated.

MARS members who had embraced CW operation knew that Morse code, the most “digital” mode of all, was an important tool for Emergency Communications. After Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the need for more robust — not to mention quickly deployable EmComm resources — some MARS members led a campaign to resume CW operations on their nets. This resulted in the Chiefs of Army MARS and Navy-Marine Corps MARS calling for a census of interested MARS members as the first step to reactivating regular training nets.

…In announcing the return of CW to MARS nets, Navy-Marine Corps MARS Chief Bo Lindfors cited an emergency where CW was sorely missed: “I remember the [1998] Northeast Ice Storm shortly after I became [Navy-Marine Corps MARS] Chief and the unnecessarily lengthy effort by all of southern New England to receive one voice EEI [Essential Elements of Information Report] from a northern New England member whose antenna was covered in ice and lying on the ground. It took more than an hour when CW could have handled it in a few minutes. As more and more of our members enter MARS with no Morse code experience, I am afraid that we will soon lose that skill set if we don’t do something.”

I did it when I first read it, and I’ll do it now:

It scares me to think that what we are seeing with Navy/Marine MARS may be a portent to the hobby itself if Hams don’t start stepping it up and focusing on more relevant technologies rather then things we have been doing for generations. Instead of focusing on D-STAR, 802.11b, 802.16, APCO P25, and similar ideas large swaths of the community is dismissing them as “not real radio” and instead continue to focus on technology that is as old as the hobby itself. If we continue to ignore advances in the communications spectrum, we’re likely in a few years time going to have a conversations with the FCC straight out of Office Space:

FCC: So what you do is you take the messages from people and you deliver them to other people?
Hams: That, that’s right.
FCC: Well, then I gotta ask, then why can’t people just send their messages directly to other people?
Hams: Well, uh, uh, uh, because, uh, people are not good at the complexities of message handling.
FCC: You physically take the message from someone?
Hams: Well, no, I, I, use the telephone, or, or the fax.
FCC: Ah. Then someone other Ham must physically deliver the message to the recpient?
Hams: Well… no. Yeah, I mean, sometimes.
FCC: Well, what would you say… you do with your spectrum?
Hams: Well, look, I already told you. I take messages and I send them to other people!! I have communications skills!! I am good at making oscilators!!! I know morse! Can’t you understand that?!? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!!!!!!!

Could pushing new technologies have saved Navy/Marine MARS? Possibly. Do I want to be asking this same question in 20 years time after the FCC starts to disolve Ham Radio? I’d rather not bother to find out.