Fifty years of heritage (edition 25) Published Oct. 7, 2011 By Eric M. White 910 AW/PA YOUNGSTOWN AIR RESERVE STATION, Ohio -- 910th uses MARS The 910th Communications Flight tends to the many and varied communications needs of the Youngstown Air Reserve Station. In the late 1970s, their mission extended beyond the direct communicative needs of the troops to the assistance of community members. Flight members maintained and operated a Military Affiliate Radio System with the function of sending short messages to other systems on behalf of community members when disasters or emergencies prevented other means of crucial communication. From the November-December 1979 910 Flyer MARS: hook up worldwide By TSgt. William Blackburn You come home from a long hard day, turn on the television and listen to the local news. The first news item is about and earthquake which rumbled through Southern California. Your initial thought is your sister Alice living in the disaster-struck area. All telegraph and telephone lines have been damaged. Information about your sister seems hopeless until the lines can be repaired. The solution to this is to contact a MARS (Military Affiliate Radio System) near you. The Air Force MARS was organized for the morale and welfare of the public and local community. According to MSgt. Erold D. Williams, MARS supervisor here anyone in the communicasystem. "The MARS is like a radio telegraph network. Messages up to 25 words are sent by radio frequency to another MARS unit and the message is written down in a telegraph format. The message is then either given to the recipient over the phone and/or sent to their home in a written message," Sergeant Williams commented. The MARS unit here is part of the 910th Communications Flight commanded by Maj. Richard Waltz. The MARS is also responsible for setting up airway communications between ground and air for the United States, Europe and the Far East. The Communications Flight is in the process of putting up a directional beam antenna called Long Parabolic. This new antenna will give the MARS the capabilities of phone patches. Other members of the MARS unit are SSgt. Joseph Mohner, Sgt. Warnicki and SrA. Jose Garcis. In a nutshell, MARS is the last link and second day arm for communications.