Registration for Ham Radio Support of the 44th Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) is now open. The MCM is the largest regular amateur radio public service/emergency communications event in the Washington, D.C. area. This year’s Marathon is on October 27. This is a large scale deployment of about 140 hams. Signup is at https://www.mcmham.org.
Those of you who have joined us in the past know how much fun it is. If you haven’t helped out in the past, or haven’t done a large public service event before, the MCM is the perfect introduction as there is a large amount of assistance with documentation, instruction and other help for the inexperienced (or even experienced) ham. The planning, documentation and techniques are also used for other large events such as inaugurations and “Marches on Washington”. This is an excellent event to get started with the unique challenges of ham radio support for large events in the National Capital region.
You must sign up to help out. The signup process has two parts: you must sign up through the ham signup site so we know what your capabilities are, and through the Marine Corps Marathon volunteer site to be an official MCM volunteer. While you can sign up in either order (ham first, MCM second or MCM first and ham second), the easiest way is to go to https://www.mcmham.org and start there. If you’ve volunteered with us before, you can go to login and enter your call sign and password and all of your previous entries are saved. You only need to change entries which have changed in the last year.
If you are new, go to sign up and start the process. Please be as accurate as you can in all entries as we will assign you based on what capabilities you tell us you have. In either case, click on the “Please make sure to click this link and sign-up on the Marine Corps website, otherwise YOU WILL NOT BE FULLY REGISTERED and won’t be allowed to volunteer.” link to be taken to the Marine Corps Marathon site to complete your registration. (Ignore any instructions about passwords). Make sure you register as a Ham Radio Operator and complete the questions at the bottom of the page. You will get an email from the MCM if you have successfully registered.
We look forward to having you join us in support of the Marathon.
Any questions may be directed to me at wd5dbc@arrl.net
73,
Howard WD5DBC
Kerry WA4BQM
for the MCM Ham Leadership Team