Effective April 10, 2001, Amateur Radio emergency communications functions will be carried out by the Marion County Emergency Radio Communications Team - MERT.

MERT is organized under the Division of Emergency Management of the Marion County Sheriff's Office. Membership in MERT puts you in a pool of operators that are called on in the event of an emergency, in a manner similar to RACES; though MERT is organized to go beyond the strict scope of a RACES organization. MERT works for, and is an organization of, the Division of Emergency Management of the Sheriff's Department, which is the county emergency management agency under Chapter 252 of the Florida Statutes.

Amateur Radio operators interested in joining MERT can contact "MERT acting Liaison Officer, Bill Parker, WB4GAA".

For additional information, or interested amateurs you may want to join the online community for MERT that Bill Parker, WB4GAA has created using the Yahoo! service. By joining this yahoo group you are not a member of MERT, this is a information site only.