Mckinney Amateur Radio Club

McKinney Amateur Radio Club (MARC) has no payroll and are a voluntary group of hundreds of active licensed ham radio operators in the North Texas area.  Membership is diverse group of men, women, veterans, civilians from all demographics. Age range from middle schoolers to seniors. Members may be home bound, have mobility issues, be blind and still participate.

MARC maintains UHF/VHF APRS and digital repeaters and backup repeaters on several towers in Collin County TX which it installs, maintains and insures and has HF equipment for communications covering greater distances.

MARC is a designated ARRL Special Service Club for our training, education and service to the community. As a very welcoming organization monthly meetings are open as well as weekly breakfast where new members or those considering getting involved can come to get questions answered on their home station designs, car installs, share what they're working on or just enjoy the company.

Our organization works with C.E.R.T Community Emergency Response Team and A.R.E.S Amateur Radio Emergency Service North Texas Section staying ready with radio traffic nets and procedural training to deploy when called upon to provide temporary emergency communications support.  Many MARC volunteers are trained Sky Warn spotters for the National Weather Service. 

Monthly meetings include a presentation of interest such as the Solar Cycle to understand signal propagation or lack of resulting from coronal mass flairs (CMF). Weather balloon launches, packet weight, communications and retrieval. Antenna tuning. Exploring homebrew antennas builds and frequency match.

Weekly 'nets' are done to practice procedures and test equipment. Events are held outdoors to test setup and deployment running on battery power only.

Educational classes are held on antenna building, testing, experimentation and electronics builds, soldering and other useful skills. Radio science and experimentation is encouraged and supported. Often the public is invited to attend classes when resources are available and an FCC issued license is not required, such as our Electronics 101 or basic soldering. With multiple modes of radio communications available such as Morse code, digital, voice, WinLink and satellite communications, opportunities for continued education continues to grow.

MARC volunteers support the local annual Smiles charity event, McKinney Octoberfest the Plano balloon festival. Holiday at the Heard Museum. Bike and foot races in the area and other events where assistance is needed. Some volunteers have assisted their neighborhoods with GMRS communications nets and training so they have access to listen to local ham radio weather nets and communicate with their neighbors via GMRS should cell towers suffer failure.

MARC members have deployed to assist after hurricanes, tornados, floods, fires, earthquakes, water main breaks, and even for debris recovery from the space shuttle Columbia disaster on re-entry and are a valuable resource for public assistance.

McKinney Amateur Radio Club offers a small scholarship to a student at the Dallas Regional Science and Engineering Fair (DRSEF) who's research is related to or may benefit radio communications. Additionally, our Youth fund supports gifting a radio to any member under 18 who passes their FCC license examination.

Members may participate in world wide events such as Parks on the Air (POTA) and Field day and other contests to continually improve their skills in contacting and in deploying remotely. For operators who are homebound, or unable to participate outside, they may be 'hunters' and are a vital part of the success. Deploying in a public environment requires consideration of the wildlife, and others there to enjoy nature and 'leave no trace' is practiced. It's been so successful that we now have SOTA- Summits on the Air, IOTA- Islands on the Air. Many members are seeing beautiful parks they would not have enjoyed otherwise.

Transmitter tracking, known as 'Fox Hunting' is an activity where participants use radio direction finding techniques to locate hidden transmitters, referred to as 'foxes'. This combines outdoor adventure with technical skills and some MARC members practice this weekly. This is also available to anyone. You do not have to have an FCC license to listen and track. It's proven a fun activity to introduce youth to radio science.

MARC has approval from the city of Fairview TX to add equipment to one of their water towers. Included is a requested microwave link to the National Weather Service in Fort Worth to aid in coverage. This will greatly increase our ability to serve the community and surrounding area.

Please consider McKinney Amateur Radio Club as a worthy recipient of funds to assist us in maintaining and increase the support efforts and our educational efforts.