AF MARS is still active and much activity is joint with Army MARS
Membership is not very large anymore. AF does not fund any websites so any you see are funded by members if there are enough to support it. I first got involved in MARS as a teenager with a Heath DX60/Drake 2B and a 6 channel vhf rig. Nowadays with the digital and computer requirements don't see how a young person on a budget could get involved
AF and Army MARS are both still very active...each service hovers around 1200 members each which has remained fairly constant over the past few years. The majority of our activity is joint supporting DOD headquarters during quarterly contingency communication training exercises. We just completed exercise 17-3 during which we trained with the DHS SHARES program and a number of telecom industry partners operating on the SHARES network. We also had several state national guard units participate in the training.
The phone patch net is also joint operation. The phone patch net consists of approximately 25 highly trained volunteers who monitor designated HF frequencies providing operational and morale phone patch support to both air and ground units. The phone patch net manager is doing some really creative things...net operators now use a home grown software suite that allows the members to communicate on a chat line, monitor propagation, monitor on-line SDR receivers for better coverage, log all the phone patch activity, and look up DSN telephone numbers.
MARS members support a series of US NORTHCOM sponsored homeland defense exercises called Vital Connections. Run three times a year, these exercises bring together various federal, DOD, state, county, local and auxiliary communication entities to conduct interoperability communication exercises. For 2017, we supported an exercise in Wisconsin and are in the final planning for exercises in Colorado, and Iowa. Next year's exercises are being planned for Oregon, Montana, and VA/MD (subject to change).
Our last DOD contingency communications exercise is coming the first weekend of November. During this exercise, we will again make heavy use of the 60 Meter channels to contact amateur radio stations across the US. We will also do the high power broadcasts on 60 meters and are looking at also doing a broadcast on a higher frequency during the day.
We will do media announcements as well as other posts to try to get the word out.
Regarding equipment costs...as with nearly any hobby or interest, it will cost money to participate. However today, I think you will find very few people who do not have at least one computer, tablet, smartphone, etc. The software required to operate the military standard and encrypted digital modes is provided free of charge (developed by some very talented programmers who do it for free) and interfaces with the radio equipment either direct via USB if your radio is so equipped or via an interface box.
v/r
Paul
Chief Army MARS