SATERN: frequencies, nets, and how the Salvation Army's radio network works

SATERN, the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network, is a network of licensed amateur radio operators who provide emergency communications for Salvation Army disaster operations and pass health-and-welfare messages out of disaster areas. Its international net meets on 14.325 MHz Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and on 14.320 MHz Saturday, at 10:30 AM Central.

The current SATERN frequencies

From the network's official HF net schedule (revised June 2024):

Two notes on reading that table. The International Net shares 14.325 MHz with the Hurricane Watch Net and stands by whenever the HWN is activated, which is exactly when both are busiest; during a hurricane you may hear either on that frequency. And various divisions run local VHF repeater nets (Chicago, Indiana, Kansas City, Omaha, North Texas, Northern California, Wisconsin among them); those schedules live with the local groups.

Why 14.265 MHz is not on the list

SATERN's daily international net ran on 14.265 MHz for over three decades, and most references written before 2021 still point there. The Salvation Army ended that net in mid-2021 and launched the current one on 14.325 MHz. A separate group of former SATERN operators continues daily operation on 14.265 MHz under the same acronym, expanded as the Strategic Auxiliary Team Emergency Readiness Net; that net is independent of The Salvation Army.

What the network does

SATERN's first net met on June 25, 1988, founded by four operators: Harold Gibson (VE3NKU), Ernie Reid (VE3BIX), Art Evans (KA9KLZ), and Captain, later Major, Patrick E. McPherson (WW9E), who went on to lead the network for decades. It grew out of a Salvationist amateur radio fellowship dating to the 1950s.

The work is the classic emergency-communications pairing: keeping Salvation Army field units reachable when infrastructure is down, and handling health-and-welfare traffic, the "we are safe" messages that move by radio when phones in a disaster area do not. The record runs from Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, months after founding, through the 2003 Northeast blackout, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (more than 20,000 health-and-welfare inquiries handled), the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Joplin tornado in 2011, and Hurricanes Harvey and Florence. The network remains active: it ran near round-the-clock coverage jointly with the Hurricane Watch Net for Hurricane Melissa in October 2025.

Taking part

Checking into a SATERN net requires nothing but an amateur license of any class; net control stations welcome visitors, and during activations any licensed amateur may relay or monitor emergency, priority, and health-and-welfare traffic. If you are not yet licensed, the Technician license is the entry point.

Becoming a formal SATERN volunteer goes through The Salvation Army's Emergency Disaster Services program, which since 2021 requires the same credentialing and background checks as its other disaster workers. The SATERN program page lists territorial coordinators for the US; the EDS site handles volunteer registration.

Listening requires no license at all: the HF nets are sideband voice, so any shortwave receiver with SSB mode hears them, as does the $40 SDR dongle route with a suitable antenna. The emergency nets guide puts SATERN alongside the other nets and channels worth knowing.