Brenda Ann wrote:


"running dogg" wrote in message
...
Brenda Ann wrote:


"Rayburn" wrote in message
...
I heard a couple of guys in Ky the other day talking about different
MARS
services dying out and maybe combining them all into one. Anyone know
anything about this and is MARS really dying out?


I know they've shut down most of the MARS stations here in Korea.

Military comms are done with satellites nowadays for the most part. On
top of that I suspect awareness of shortwave and of amateur radio is
very low among the typical military recruit pool.


For the most part, MARS was an interconnect between overseas military and
the stateside amateur community, for the specific purpose of relaying
messages from military personnel to folks back home. The need for it,
especially here in Korea, has been supplanted by cheap cell phones and 4
cents a minute phone cards for calling the states. It's cheaper for me to
call stateside on my cell phone here than it is for you to call from state
to state.

Hell, troops doing battle in Iraq have access to email. In fact, they
have better email access than phone access. I suppose that in a
peacetime situation that the need for shortwave is nil. Troops of
earlier wars who had to send paper letters that took months to arrive-if
they arrived at all-or had to line up at the comms center to send
messages over SW would be extremely envious of today's warriors.