Special Bulletin From ARRL Headquarters

The Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard are
co-sponsoring the annual Military/Amateur Radio Crossband
Communications Test in celebration of the 62nd anniversary of Armed
Forces Day (AFD). Although the actual Armed Forces Day is celebrated
on the third Saturday in May -- May 19 in 2012 -- the AFD
Military/Amateur Crossband Communications Test will be conducted on
May 12 to prevent conflict with the Dayton Hamvention, scheduled for
May 18-20.

The annual celebration features traditional military-to-amateur
crossband communications SSB voice and Morse code tests. These tests
give Amateur Radio operators and short wave listeners an opportunity
to demonstrate their individual technical skills and to receive
recognition from the appropriate military radio station for their
proven expertise. QSL cards will be provided to those stations
making contact with the military stations.

Military-to-amateur crossband operations will take place on the
dates and time in UTC on the frequencies listed for each station.
Voice contacts will include operations in single sideband voice
(SSB). Some stations, depending on propagation and staffing, may not
operate the entire period. Participating military stations will
transmit on selected military MARS frequencies and listen for
Amateur Radio stations in the amateur bands. The military station
operator will announce the specific amateur band frequency being
monitored. Duration of each voice contact should be limited to 1-2
minutes.

The schedules and frequencies of participating military stations can
be found in PDF format on the web at,
http://www.netcom.army.mil/MARS/docs/AMC_Test_2012.pdf.