We are an amateur radio club and public service volunteer group at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. Membership is free and open to any individuals with an interest on ham radio, radio telecommunications, hands-on electronics experimentation, or volunteer emergency communications services.
In April we had our annual elections. The current Club Officers agreed to continue serving in their current roles.
We are preparing for the 2025 ARRL Field Day. Let us know if you would like to participate (info@nihrac.org).
Membership is free and available to anyone interested in amateur radio, telecommunications, emergency communications, or hobby electronics. A NIH badge is NOT required for membership. For more information, visit our Membership page.
NIHRAC makes a number of resources freely available for use to its members. Our facility has state-of-the-art radio stations and antenna systems for voice and digital radio communications, meeting space, an electronics workbench, and equipment for radio experimentation and DIY electronics projects. Our storage has portable equipment for emergency deployment and a variety of loaner radios, power supplies and other equipment. Visit our Club Resources page to see more details.
We maintain a repeater in the 2-meter band that is openly available to anyone with an amateur radio license. We also make regular use of a local 70-centimeter repeater. Our 2-meter repeater is at 145.29 MHz (output freq.)/144.69 MHz (input). Some times PL5A (156.7 Hz) encoding is required for access. For more details, please visit our Repeaters page.
We meet the first MONDAY of every month at 7:30pm. Meetings are online or in person. We welcome everyone, with or without a ham license. We encourage NIH employees and contractors to join us, but every adult from the community is welcome. See our About Us page for directions and additional information. Online participation is via Zoom. The link to join meetings is shared via our email list (NIHRAC-L@list.nih.gov) prior to each event. We also hold a weekly "net", or on-the-air meeting, every Monday at 9:00 p.m. on our 2 meter repeater at 145.950 MHz. Hams can access the repeater by radio, or via the Internet using the EchoLink App (server "K3YGG-R").
We usually re-share interesting videos, both new and old, about ham radio, for your entertainment and education. Please ignore any advertisement; we do not endorse any products or business!
If you would like to suggest a video you think others might like, send it to us! Email the link and a brief description to: info@nihrac.org.