• William Feist

The Salvation Army And American Radio Relay League Announce MOU At HamVention

Xenia, OH (05/18/2018) – Continuing a partnership that has existed since 1976, The Salvation Army and the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) – the national association for amateur radio - renewed their commitment to work together during disasters with the signing of a renewed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) at this year’s Dayton Hamvention.

National SATERN Liaison Bill Feist (WB8BZH) and ARRL Emergency Preparedness Manager Mike Corey (KI1U) worked for over a year to complete the revised MOU and get approval for it through their respective organizations.  The MOU was finalized when ARRL Board President Rick Roderick (K5UR) signed the document at the Dayton Hamvention on Friday, 18 May 2018   The Dayton Hamvention is the largest amateur radio gathering in the world annually drawing some 25,000 licensed amateur "ham" radio operators from all over the world.

The MOU defines how The Salvation Army and its SATERN (Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network) will wotk with the ARRL in disaster and emergency response.  Corey said, “It opens the possibility for sharing of resources.  That’s always important:  we saw that [in the 2017 Hurricane Season] last fall.”

In August 2017 SATERN supported the efforts of the ARRL during the Great American Eclipse and with its deployment of 22 operators to Puerto Rico in support of the American Red Cross following Hurricane Maria.

During that same time period the ARRL supported SATERN with additional radio operators and by using their mega-station W1AW on the International SATERN Voice Net to handle incoming messages from operators in Puerto Rico who were sending emergency, priority and health and welfare messages to the U.S.

SATERN also has valuable informal working partnerships with other emergency communications groups such as the Hurricane Watch Net (HWN), the Military Auxiliary Radio Service (MARS) and Voice-Over-IP Hurricane Net (VoIPWX.net) among others.

“Partnerships with organizations like the ARRL and others are essential to our individual and combined ability to respond effectively to disasters.” Feist said.