Patients at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital Talk to Santa Over Ham Radio:

TAMPA, Fla., Dec. 15, 2017 -- Patients at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital in Tampa had a direct link from their hospital room to Mr. and Mrs. Claus in the North Pole on Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017, thanks to Santa's helpers from the Bay Area Emergency Amateur Radio Service (BEARS) and the hospital's Child Life team. For the past nine years, volunteers with BEARS along with St. Joseph's Hospitals Facility Technician and BEARS Coordinator Christopher Perry have turned their amateur radio station housed in the hospital's emergency communications center into the "Santa Net Control Center." When not being used to connect patients to the North Pole, BEARS operates as a community based emergency response station under the call sign W4TCH. "You just can't help but smile when you hear the pure joy these kids have in talking to Santa," said Perry. "They're usually surprised that he's thinking of them while they're in the hospital and reassured that he knows where to leave their presents on Christmas Eve."

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