Welcome to NIHRAC  

The National Institutes of Health Radio Amateur Club

Bethesda, Maryland, USA

MEMBERSHIP

NIHRAC members enjoy use of our Club’s facilities and serve as the backbone of the NIH emergency communication system during scheduled outages and in case of an emergency.

 We welcome applications from anyone interested in amateur radio and emergency communications.  We have members who are current and past NIH personnel, representatives from the local community, and others who have traveled to various DX zones.  We do ask that children are accompanied by responsible adults, but other than that an interest in or curiosity about the many aspects of amateur radio will find a home here. To file a membership application, visit our Contact Us page.

CLUB RESOURCES

 

NIHRAC operates the Emergency Communications Center (ECC) at the Bethesda, Maryland campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Club is responsible for supporting and maintaining communications within NIH and with other federal facilities in the event of an emergency.

 

The ECC facilities include:

• Meeting/operations rooms
• Electronics workbench & test equipment
• Two High Frequency (HF) radio stations
• Very High Frequency (VHF) and Ultra High Frequency (UHF) stations
• Voice over IP to radio gateway (EchoLink)
  
• Computer terminals to support digital communications via radio
• A wide variety of antennas to support almost any operation
• Equipment available for check out by club members
• VHF and UHF repeaters

  REPEATERS

 

 We maintain two amateur radio repeaters on the NIH Clinical Center (building 10).  Both are open repeaters, but may be sequestered during drills, safety, and emergency operations.  EchoLink (K3YGG-R) connectivity is provided on the 2M repeater to facilitate participation from members who live outside of the immediate area.  

2 meter FM Repeater: 

    144.69 input / 145.29 output

    PL5A (156.7 Hz) encoding required for access.

 

70 cm FM Repeater: 

    442.925 input / 447.925 output

 

The Club normally meets the first Saturday of every month at the Club facilities in NIH. See About Us for directions. We also have a weekly net (on-air meeting) every Monday at 8:30 p.m. on our 2 meter repeater.  We welcome check-ins from all stations over the air or via EchoLink (K3YGG-R).