The silicon vacancy in silicon carbide is a strong emergent candidate for applications in quantum information processing and sensing. We perform room temperature optically-detected magnetic resonance and spin echo measurements on an ensemble of vacancies and find the properties depend strongly on magnetic field. The spin echo decay time varies from less than 10 s at low fields to 80 s at 68 mT, and a strong field-dependent spin echo modulation is also observed. The modulation is attributed to the interaction with nuclear spins and is welldescribed by a theoretical model.Deep defect centers in solids are of great current interest as quantum bits or quantum emitters for applications in quantum computing, communication, and sensing, as they combine strengths from the solid state and the atomic world. In particular, the electronic and spin states of some defects have many desirable properties including high efficiency emission of single photons [1-4], highly coherent spin states even at room temperature [5-10], and optical initialization and readout [11][12][13]. Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond, consisting of a nitrogen atom substituted for a carbon next to a vacancy, have been extensively studied and have thus become the standard for such defects.