The Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN) Southern Territory Net will activate on Saturday, August 26, 1400 UTC, and continue until Sunday, August 26 at 0100 UTC (9 AM until 8 PM Central Time) on its regular frequency of 7.262 MHz.

“The net will be monitored by SATERN stations from around the Southern Territory — especially those in the western part of the Southern Territory — for any stations checking in from Texas and Louisiana impacted by Hurricane Harvey,” said National SATERN Liaison Bill Feist, WB8BZH.

Feist said the net will be looking for any emergency, priority, or health and welfare traffic from hurricane-affected areas, brief situation reports from stations regarding the extent of any hurricane wind damage — or tornado damage — and its extent, whether there is any flood damage and its extent, and if there are power outages. The net also requests information on any communication disruptions — what kind and how widespread.

SATERN stations wishing to participate can check in at any time on the Southern Territory Net frequency of 7.262 MHz. Any SATERN station wishing to be a Net Control Station should contact Southern Territory SATERN Net Manager Ken Standard, AD5XJ.

The net will work in cooperation with the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) and the Hurricane Watch Net (HWN).

Feist said that, as of this time, the net will only be in operation on Saturday, August 26, “unless circumstances dictate otherwise or it is requested to remain active by The Salvation Army.”

SATERN is an all-volunteer organization of Amateur Radio operators. Many are ARRL Technical Specialists, SKYWARN, and/or Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) members. In addition, some volunteers have voluntarily completed one or more of the FEMA Incident Command System (ICS) training modules or ARRL Emergency Training, or Salvation Army EDS Incident Command training modules and are prepared to deploy into any affected area. Others work in place to extend the SATERN communication network. — Thanks to Bill Feist, WB8BZH/SATERN