Louisiana SouthBears

Newsletter

01/28/08

This is the first newsletter of the Louisiana SouthBears. To clarify what SouthBears is, it stands for Southern Baptist Emergency Amateur Radio Service. This group is associated with NAMB, the North American Mission Board and the Disaster Relief programs they run. Each state has its on amateur service group that works with SouthBears. Louisiana has not had a group until this past weekend when several Baptist and Non-Baptist came together in Alexandria, LA at a Disaster Relief Training Program sponsored by the Southern Baptist. The plans are to rebuild the ham station at the Baptist Building in Alexandria. This will be done by the local Ham Clubs and ARES groups in the Alexandria area. The Baptist will purchase the equipment as money becomes available. They have already purchased a Kenwood 2000 and some other equipment is on the way. There were many things talked about that we will be able to do. The main thing is to find and enroll as many Hams that would be interested in helping out during a disaster. There will be many jobs on and off the Disaster Field. We would like to be able to send a Ham with each Disaster Unit that goes out. We will need Hams to man the radio at the Baptist Building and we will need relays to help get the message through to the Baptist Building as well as the Hams in the field. Something else we will be doing is using all types of modes CW, SSB, Packet, PSK and many others. It will really depend on your particular setup. You may be using a phone because we are communications first and Hams second. The first thing we ask is to sign up locally then go to www.southbears.org and sign up there along with signing up on the SouthBears Yahoo Group. This way we will be able to get information out to you as to when and where you would be needed. We are in the process of setting up a link on the Louisiana Baptist web site ( www.lbc.org ) Look under the disaster relief training link, to sign up as well. The last thing we did before closing is set up a Louisiana SouthBears net.

This net will start on January 31 following the Central Gulf Coast Hurricane net. The hurricane net is starting at 0100 Zulu and running about an hour. Wayne Hatfield – Kd5JJP will be the net control. We will also have a Echolink connection at the NAMB node #286648. This will be for the Techs in our group and others who can not hear net control; he will only take check-ins by way of text messaging and will acknowledge you after the HF net is over. We are still in the process of working on a format for the net and we will let everyone know when we know. This program is open to all Amateur Radio Operators who have a license. Your religious background will not be a problem; all we ask is that you be a Christian and can reflect that to other people. Please join the Louisiana SouthBears net this Thursday to find out more and add your input. Please be in prayer that this is something you would like to help out with.