January, 2004

Who is MAREX-MG

By Miles Mann, WF1F
MAREX-MG (Manned Amateur Radio Experiment, North American Division)

The club has been around since 1991, however the name has changed a few times over the years (MAREX -> MIREX -> MAREX-MG). It all began in 1991 when Dave Larsen (N6CO/N6JLH) and Miles Mann (WF1F) formed a club called MAREX (Mir Amateur Radio Experiment).

Original MAREX goals:

In 1994 Dave Larsen spear-headed a project to replace the existing Amateur Radio E-mail Modem (Terminal Node Controller TNC) on the Russian Space Station Mir. The original PacCom TNC had suffered a battery failure which caused frequent long down times. The new TNC was installed on Mir in 1995, this was the first MAREX project to go into Space.

In early 1996, the Energia Radio club, which manages all Amateur Radio projects on the Russian Space Station Mir, said they liked the name of our club (MAREX) and they wanted to use the name MAREX. So, we gave the Energia club the name MAREX or MAREX-RU. And we changed our name from MAREX to MIREX (Mir International Radio Experiment). The word International is more in keeping with the spirit of the club, we did not think of our selves as a "USA" only club. 

In November 1996 MIREX was invited to the first Amateur Radio International Space Station meeting in Houston Texas. MIREX was instrumental in getting the representatives from Energia to come to Houston and sign some Amateur Radio cooperation agreements. Energia also took the lead in offering Antenna feed-through port access on the International Space Station for Amateur Radio projects. (4 antenna ports on the Service Module have been installed and additional antenna ports have been proposed by Energia for other modules).

One of the main goals of the first meeting was to form a coordinated management organization, called ARISS (Amateur Radio International Space Station). The goal of ARISS is to have one group coordinate all projects and manage all of the projects on ISS.

In May 1998 the MIREX club split into two clubs. The MIREX side with Dave Larsen still acts as QSL manager and provides most of the daily PMS system operator duties and supports Mir school schedules. The engineering side of MIREX formed a new group called MAREX-MG (Manned Amateur Radio Experiment).

The MAREX-MG duties:

The Future of MAREX-MG:

The MAREX-MG team has submitted multiple Amateur Radio project proposal to ARISS for consideration for the International space Station. The MAREX SSTV project is just one of the projects which has been accepted by ARISS as a project for the ISS in the fall of 2004. For more information about future MAREXMG project, please read the section on ISS Projects on our MAREXMG web page.

MAREX philsophy:

Partial list of MAREX-MG Engineering Staff

Miles Mann, WF1F

Chris Scott, WB9NEQ

Rebecca Harvey, N1GZD

Henry Cantrell, W4HTB

Boris Garber

Wayne Nakata, N1WPN

Don C. Miller, W9NTP

Farrell Winder, W8ZCF

Jim Barber, N7CXI

John Langner, W2OSZ

Jerry Muller, K0TV



For information about the MAREX-MG SSTV project, check the web page at:

http://www.marexmg.org

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