Date: March 2023
Amount: $33,000

The Marin Amateur Radio Society (MARS) is a well-established organization that supports local public service events, such as footraces and bicycle rides, as well as maintains a connected network of mountaintop repeaters, which are utilized for emergency communications. Within the MARS organization, the North Bay Area Mesh (NBAM) committee was established in 2022 to support a grant awarded by ARDC; this grant allowed for the building of a mesh backbone into both Sonoma and Marin counties, thus providing a communications network that can serve the region in the event of a local disaster.

This grant provides for an 18-month extension of the aforementioned project, empowering growth of the NBAM team to support, maintain, and expand the Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network (AREDN) mesh throughout the region; update and maintain the NBAM website; and to provide outreach, operator training, and other training materials. As a result, this will increase the use of digital tools made available to amateur radio operators, ultimately increasing the number of people getting involved in the hobby.

Learn more at https://www.northbaymesh.org/.