75th Anniversary of MARC!

The first meeting of the Muscatine Amateur Radio Club was held on January 21 1948. That makes this year the 75th Anniversary of the club. That is a great accomplishment, especially in this day and age.

Unfortunately, like a lot of other hobbies, amateur radio operators are getting harder to come by. The digital age has many people scratching their heads and saying, "What in the world do I need a radio for? I have a cell phone!". While technology is a great thing... it is also very fragile. New technology makes our lives easier... until it doesn't. When we depend on the latest and greatest technology and it fails for us... we will be lost.

That is exactly why we need amateur radio. We need a system in place that can provide communications when all other means fail. A backup if you will. A way to carry us back to a time when those fragile systems are back up and running, and can handle the loads we put on them. There are many reasons our current systems can (and will) fail. Most of the time in the aftermath of a large wide-spread disaster the current platform can not handle the extreme load put on it, as it is not designed to handle that kind of a load.

Look for a week-long Special Event station coming up in late September or early October in celebration of the 75th anniversary of MARC. This will run in conjunction with our 40th Annual Southeast Iowa Hamfest that will take place Sunday, October 1, 2023 at the Louisa County Fairgrounds in Columbus Junction, Iowa.

The Muscatine Amateur Radio Club supports our ARES team. The Muscatine County Amateur Radio Emergency Service team works hard to get members involved in exercises that will not only keep the membership interested, but also encourages them to learn. They also do on-the-air license study sessions to help individuals get their license, they even hold bi-monthly testing sessions to coordinated by Volunteer Examiners to obtain your amateur radio license.

MARC apparel is available to show your support. T-shirts, Hoodies, Caps, and Stocking caps are available, as well as many other items you can special order. Contact Bruce - WBØGAG at 319-212-1898, or email him at BDagel@Machlink.com if you are interested.

Join us. Become part of something larger than yourself. Give back to your community a the while learning and having fun at the same time. What could be better?