What is SouthBEARS? It is the Southern Baptist Emergency Amateur Radio Service. This group does so much for disaster relief, it is hard to describe.
Created in 1968, following Hurricane Beulah, they came into their prime when they responded to Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Since then, they have grown to become the third largest disaster relief organization in the nation, with only the Red Cross and Salvation Army being larger.
I would like to encourage anyone with a General Class license or higher to check in at least once a month, if not weekly, into their net on Sunday afternoons.
They also take check-in’s via Winlink by sending those messages to KB8HZ. They recommend using the “Winlink Wednesday” message format, and ask that you include your call, name, location (including county,) and mode of transmission. They ask that you do not send any attachments and use ONLY RF, not Telnet, to send those messages.
The net meets every Sunday afternoon at 16:00 Eastern (15:00 Central) on 7.261 MHz.
For more information, please visit their website at http://www.southbears.org/