MARC Mobile Emergency Communications Center

On Saturday, 2/11 Kevin (N2AM) and Scott (NØMRZ) traveled to Fairfield, Iowa to bring back this mobile Emergency Communications Center for the club to use. It was one of two such unit that were purchased with a Homeland Security grant approximately 10 years ago. Neither of these units have seen much use, and are basically brand new.

This was made possible by the Muscatine County Director of Emergency Services. He made the arrangements for us to go and get this piece of equipment and bring it back to Muscatine County for the amateur radio club to use for training and for providing emergency communications.

The unit is a 26' long fully contained trailer that includes a generator, a 65' Aluma tower that is run by an electric winch. It also has such things as a refrigerator, rest room, and plenty of room to setup additional stations along the left wall. There is already a 2 meter / 440 station that is programmed and ready to go!

We owe the Director of Emergency Services a big thank you for the use of this equipment, and need to put it to good use. A Saturday needs to be scheduled to make sure everything is operational, and that we know how to operate everything, and then I believe we need to schedule some training sessions.

There are a few items we will need for the trailer. As Bill (KC8TWZ) noticed, it does not have a First Aid kit in it, and we need to locate the remote to run the tower up. If we can not locate it we need to acquire one. Look out Field Day! All we have to do is decide where we want to do it!