2025 Marine Corp Marathon

(Adapted from viennawireless.net)

The Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) needs about 150 amateur radio operators to support the various communications requirements of the marathon, primary of which is to provide situational awareness and rapid communications anywhere on the course. Communications is conducted on 2m and 70 cm bands using several of the area amateur radio repeaters. So all you need to participate is a dual-band handheld radio. And if you’ve been a participant in the Club 2m net on Monday nights, you have most of the training you need, and the Marathon team will provide additional training about two weeks before the event. It’s a great experience to participate in the largest amateur radio public support event in the DC-MD-VA area. You’ll most likely be stationed at a mile marker to report when runners pass, medical emergencies, need for assistance, etc. We’ll have more discussion of the event in upcoming meetings.

To register as a Ham Volunteer, first register with the MCM Organization website: TBD

I encourage you to talk to VWS’ers who have participated in the event to understand what it’s like and what you need to do to be a successful participant. There is also an MCM amateur radio training session held in October. If you want to get some flavor for the event with pictures, you can sign up for the MCM Ham Radio Facebook group.

You can visit the Marine Corps marathon site (https://www.marinemarathon.com/) to learn more about the schedule of events, course map, parking, etc