November 8, 2025
OCALA, Fla. — With plans for its own ham radio room and new radio tower, Marion Baptist Association in Ocala will soon be taking part in emergency communications to help local churches and their membership during statewide disaster relief efforts.
With Florida being right in the middle of hurricane season, these updates are coming at a great time, according to Mark Weible, mission strategist for the association, who only got his ham radio license about a year ago. Since then, he has discovered the many applications of this technology and a new community of people who are practitioners.
“A year ago when I started studying for my ham radio license, I had no idea that I would get this far deep into it. Or that it would be this practical,” he said.
In pursuing his license, Weible is hoping to establish a network of ham radio operators among all 67 churches in the association. The idea is for each church to have its own ham radio operator so that the churches can communicate with one another and relay information in the event of a hurricane or natural disaster.
“My number one reason for doing this was simply to reach out to our churches,” Weible said. “If we were to have a hurricane, I’d need to know which churches have power, which churches are not damaged, and which churches can host disaster relief teams. I’d need to know which churches need help and which ones can help.”
He has asked local pastors to help find ham radio operators in their congregations, but they’re not always so identifiable or forthcoming about their hobby. And it’s not something that a pastor would typically know about members of his congregation. So far, he has about 13.
After passing the test to become licensed, Weible joined the Silver Springs Radio Club to get to know more ham radio practitioners. The club has about 160 active members, including three from local Baptist churches.
He also joined the Marion Emergency Radio Team, or MERT, to help him understand how to use ham radio for emergency purposes. The team operates the ham radio at the county’s Emergency Operations Center during disaster situations. Joining the team resulted in the donation of a telescoping ham radio antenna – it goes from 7 feet to 30 feet – to Marion Baptist Association. It was being replaced at the Marion County Division of Emergency Management, and Weible asked if he could have it for the association.
Volunteering with that team led him to develop an Emergency Communications Plan for the association using the letters PSA. P is for “Primary,” such as the cell phone and office phone. S is for “Secondary,” such as the Starlink satellite internet service, which allows you to text and call from your cell phone via Wi-Fi calling. A is for “Auxiliary,” or amateur radio.
“If the phones are not working, if Starlink isn’t working, then we have amateur radio we can turn to,” he said. “Cell phones, land lines, and Starlink depend on infrastructure that you can’t control. Ham radio is just two people with radios. There is no required infrastructure.”
He’s also learned about Winlink, an important tool that amateur radio operators use to send emails via radio waves. A church could use Winlink, for example, to get an email to the county’s EOC letting them know how many people they are feeding each day during disaster relief or what type of supplies are needed. The Federal Emergency Management Agency even uses Winlink to send various templates or government forms to those needing assistance after a hurricane.
Radiograms are another form of communication that amateur radio operators can use to send messages across the airwaves. They’ve been around since the founding of the Amateur Radio Relay League in 1916. Radiograms are often used for day-to-day messages, birthday greetings, and more. But during disasters, operators can send radiograms to and from areas hit by storms or hurricanes for wellness checks.
Weible plans to combine his newfound radio skills with the chaplaincy training he completed last year with Florida Baptist Disaster Relief. As he’s checking on people impacted by storms and engaging in spiritual conversations, he can also help them get messages to friends and loved ones in other areas to let them know how they are. That type of communication can be vital during a crisis.
“If they are emotionally distraught because they have not heard from their family members or vice versa, they may be so upset that they can’t eat,” he said. “As a chaplain, I can take that message and get it to our communications team right away with my radio. This can have immediate impact and an immediate benefit because communication is a basic human need.”
That’s the type of service churches could be providing to the public after disaster hits if they have a radio room set up with a communications team of volunteer radio operators.
Many ham radio operators enjoy this as a hobby or sport, Weible said. They compete in contests and win certificates and awards for things such as making contact with someone from around the world.
“Some people do it purely for fun, just like some people watch college football all day on Saturday,” he said. “There’s science in it; there’s math in it. There’s the sense of adventure and exploring. There’s the sense of problem-solving. That’s why it’s a hobby that once people get into it, it kind of becomes consuming.”
Sometimes these enthusiasts may just need a little direction, Weible said, an invite or a push in the right direction to see how they could be using their talents to help others.
“They have all the knowledge; they have the equipment but no one saying, ‘Hey, why don’t you use this for emergency communications. Why don’t you pass along radio grams or WinLink messages? Why don’t you do this to help the people in your church communicate with their family members who might be in a disaster themselves or in another location?’”
Now that the association has its radio room set up, Weible plans to show it off to local churches and ask them to consider setting up their own rooms.
Getting his ham radio license and joining the local radio clubs has exposed him to a whole new community of people. When they ask why he got into radio, he tells them about his role at Marion Baptist Association and how he wants to help churches communicate with one another and help each other during times of disaster. He even keeps a radio in his car now.
“Now they know about Florida Baptist Disaster Relief, and now they know there are Christians who live out their faith by serving others as volunteers during times of disaster,” he said. “It helps them to see the very positive side of what it means to be a believer, what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and what it means to be a church member. This has allowed me to have a positive witness with a group of people that I would never have had access to before.”
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This story was published by the Florida Baptist Convention.
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