Communications. For When There Are None

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We’ve all had this happen......

You’re in Middle of Nowhere America, your talking with your spouse or friend, and suddenly you’ve been talking to yourself for the last 5 miles. No Signal. ARRRRRGH!!!!

Now to misquote the famous, ( Well famous for my age group) Rod Serling’s, “Imagine If you will……..” Something somewhere happened. The cell phone is now a paperweight. You have entered the No Coms Zone.

Seriously, the lack of communication today is far worse than when I was a child in the 60’s and 70’s. Phones don’t work? Oh well I’ll just go over to my friend's house. TV out? Well there is ALWAYS 770 am KKOB. Back then AM radio was still a real thing and they all had backup generators and antennas. Even TV back then. You could pick up TV signals with a couple of pieces of wire or even foil.

Today, everything is dependent on the internet. Hell my work’s phone is net dependent. TV is digital and has half the range of TV of the 70’s to the Early 2000’s. Those old rabbit ears are done for. Where there was tens of thousands of AM radio stations to day less than 4000 remain. https://www.voanews.com/a/am-radio-fights-to-stay-on-car-dashboards/7202566.html

Car manufactures are removing AM from radios, or at least are trying.

So why is this so important to us preppers and homesteaders? Information. Today information keeps the world running. And with out it it is very difficult to make good choices on defense, planting, medical preps etc. Sure Charles Ingalls didn’t have that tech in 1878 when he left the Big Woods for the prairie. But today , we have grown accustomed to knowing the weather. Which country is taking over who. What is the VOD. (Virus Of the Day)

So this may help with information sharing PSHTF

First, Personal Radios. These are radios that you carry on your person. Walkie Talkies Handi talkies etc. They come in all sizes shapes power levels and frequencies. / bands. The most common bands are the Amature bands of 2 meter and 70cm. (145 mhz and 440 mhz) These require a FCC license to use. You must pass a test to get your license. Has an established repeater network, that potentially allows country wide communication with 5-10 watts. OH!!! Before we continue. I want to talk about FCC licenses. GET YOURS TODAY!!! For a few reasons. Sure I know. You're Mr. Grey Man or Grey Woman and want to stay off grid. No connection to the outside. I respect that. Really do. But if you have a radio, key that microphone your gray status just went neon. Encrypted, folded, stapled or spindled, you just lit a 5+ watt beacon.

Back to the topic. Getting your ticket means that you can practice with your radio, on the air, and get help from experienced ham operators. You learn your radio and what it can do BEFORE things go bad. Then when the time’s come that a license doesn’t matter, you’re good to go. There are hundreds of books, websites and even ham operators that will help you. You can spend hundreds of dollars on books. But look.Yes it is fun to know the theory, physics and electrical engineering about radio. But you do not need to really need it.

There I said it. Sure it is fun knowing how radio waves propagate, but when bad things happen, it's enough to know how to use your radio. There are just 35 questions on the Technician and General license exam. You need to get a 74% to pass. The questions are pulled from a pool of 400+ questions. You can spend a few hundred on books and online study groups. Or you can just go to Ham exam Amateur Radio Practice Exams for Free. Spend an hour or so a couple of times a week and take the practice exams.

Keep on doing until you get a minimum of 85%. Then schedule your testing session. In 2022 the FCC got congress to increase the cost of the licence to $35 bucks and the testing fee is $15. A quick web search will find testers in your area. The testers are Ham operators. They WANT you to pass, but do not ask them to cheat for you. They will help you prep, most of the time for free. Use the resources that they provide.

Back at the ranch.

Hand held radios and the bands they use.

GMRS Works on 462-467 mhz, and its most common with 1-10 watts on the hand held. Needs a FCC license , but no testing needed. Fee applies.

FRS. No license needed and very low power. FCC sets the max at 2 watts, but your Walmart walkie talkie has maybe 500 milliwatts, ½ a watt.

CB. This used to be a thing of the past. When I was a kid our walkie talkies and a morse code button, and was on CB channel 14. Today the CB handheld is still a thing. 40 channels and 5 watts of power They work on 27 mhz AM, The rest (Except for some 2 meter and 70cm) are all FM And some of the CB handhelds have Sideband. No license needed today.

So we have the playing field laid out on the handhelds, let's chew the rag! (Ham radio term for talking!)

Amateur radio bands. Baofeng UV5R and the UV82 series Handhelds. This one is in the #1 spot for a reason. The rest of the list is random. The Baofeng radios. They do what the $400.00 Kenwoods and Yaesu’s do. But for $30.00 Which means Clumsy Chuck can drop in a stream, kill it and not be out $400 bucks. Baofeng radios prior to 2023 had a much wider frequency range but have since been limited by the FCC. There are however YouTube workarounds. They are HARD to program by hand, it can be done. But you will learn new cuss words programming 120 repeater channels. CHIRP has free software for Mac Windows and Linux to program them with. Be sure to buy the cable. We have 8 of these. 4 are in daily use and 4 are in a Faraday box with chargers preprogrammed. Yes they are that inexpensive. 8 still didn’t cost as much as a Yaesu. One thing I will say about 2 meters and the Baofeng. We were in Alaska in 2018 when 7.1 hit us. Cell phones were intermittent, land lines the same. But as soon as the shaking stopped I called my family on our Baofengs and knew immediately everyone was safe. Try that with a Samsung S-24 during an earthquake! Pick up a 2 pack here.

GMRS radio. Baofeng makes a very nice pure GMRS radio. At first, I was going to list the Midland T920VP4, until a close friend told me that Baofeng makes one at the same price as the Midland but IP67 waterproof standards VS the Midland IP 14. The difference is IP67 is dust and dirt proof and can handle up to 1 meter of water for short periods and IP14 is not dust proof and can handle being splashed. Slightly splashed. More of a misting. Gently. Nod here goes to the Baofeng. Pick up a 2 pack here

FRS. FRS Radios are now the “toy” walkie talkie of the 70’s. Cheap, garish colors, and outlandish claims. Like UP TO 35 MILES OF TALK POWER! They are not “technically “lying. IF you are on the top of a large mountain. On a perfectly clear day. No storms anywhere/ At the solar minimum. You may reach the exact same height mountain 35 miles away. In reality, maybe a mile or less. No real brand choice here. They are all about the same with the same output (500 MW) and similar antennas. Take your pick of the litter. Nice thing about FRS is its cheap. You can get a 4 pack of radios for under 30 bucks. You have lots of channels and they are great for homestead use. Amazon has this one on sale

CB. Good old CB radio. Works on the 27mhz AM and SSB frequency. Look, you can’t go wrong with a good handheld CB. CB has 5 watts, if you get a Sideband radio you have 12 watts. Now 5 and 12 watts does not sound like a lot. But being AM and not FM you are not bound by the line of sight rules that the above radios have. With good solar conditions you can bounce that 4 watts off the ionosphere and potentially talk around the planet. Old CB Ratchet Jaws called it Skip. They are smaller now and tougher. We’ll have a list of various places to buy one in our link page. One downside of CB and all the “non licensed “ radios is the dirtbags that make things bad. You do not have it as bad on the 2m/70cm and GMRS bands. One thing that is a plus on the 11 meter/CB band is "skip" Skip is the AM or SSB (Single Sideband) radio waves bounce or skip off the Ionosphere of the earth. That means your 5 watt handheld radio may end up talking to someone hundreds to thousands of miles away. It's pretty cool when the solar conditions are right. Uniden makes a very nice one and Amazon has it on sale.

10-meter band. 10 meter is just a bit below the CB bands, but it is a pure amateur radio band. You need a Tech license minimum to use PARTS of it General for all of it. The nice thing about 10 meters is you can use voice on it like the 2 meter and 70cm bands. All other ham bands unless you’re a general license operator or better, well you’re limited to Morse code. (I’ll talk about that later) With 10 meters you get more power than CB FRS or GMRS , have easy access to AM and the Sideband bands Plus FM repeaters. Remember AM gives you longer communication since it is not a line of site mode like FM. On the 10-meter radios. Some are available modified for higher power, more channels and can even have access to the 11 meter/CB bands. Some modifications are legal, IE power level. But ones that cross into the 11-meter band are illegal by FCC rules. In the Handi Talkie range there are really no worthwhile radios that I have found. Yet! I just acquired this Anytone Ares 2 10-meter radio. After setting it up this weekend, I was able to talk to the UK, Iceland and Mexico City, without any tune up to it. I'll write a product review later on. It's a long story on how I got it!

Check it out on Amazon It not a bad buy for under $200.00

Base station and mobile radios.

The same that I wrote above for mobiles can apply to base and mobile. The difference is base station mobile radios are bigger than handhelds. Have more power and need more power. For the most part the days of the HUGE base station radio are gone, and mostly the mobile (car) radios do as well or better, Except for an addition that was not on the original list. A base needs 110 volt AC. Mobiles are happy on 12 volts DC. That means your car powers it. Or a solar panel. Water generator.

In no real order this time.

2 meter/70 cm Btech/Baofeng UV25X2. A dual band mobile radio with 25 watts of power and the ability to “watch” 4 channels at once. This is the one we have in our Jeeps and its bigger brother the UV50X2 is our base station. It has 50 watts. Both are selectable for 5 watts or their max of 25 or 50. Our base runs off deep cycle batteries that last weeks turned on and are charged by both a regular charger and can be done with a 12 volt solar charger. Get the programming cable and CHIRP. It is easier than a UV5R but still not fun. Mine is the Baofeng/Btech UV25X2 and its at Amazon. As you can see mine is a bit beat up, but let me tell y'all it works and works well. Plus it takes very little space in my XJ series Jeep

GMRS. Gonna give the nod to Baofeng here again. The Btech GMRS 50V2 is basically the UV50X2 but in GMRS frequencies, where the Radiooddity DB25G is the UV25X2 in GMRS and branding. They program and operate as well as the Ham radio brothers. Got a chance to use the Btech one a few weeks ago. Good sound reports from all contacts with it. Grab yours at Amazon

CB. This is a hard one for a two for the price of one, the Anytone listed above is ABLE to receive and Transmit on 11 meters. The CB band. There is a legal issue with that. You cannot have a "ham" radio that is able to transmit on non-ham frequencies. IE some Baofeng radios USED to be able to transmit and receive well below the 2 meter band to way above the 70cm band. IR FRS, GMRS. Most new Baofengs have been modified to be FCC compliant. That being said, if you just want CB only no need for a FCC Liscense, then this is the radio for you. Amazon has it in stock and it's AWESOME. The Galaxy DX-959G

10 meters? The same Anytone Ares 2 is perfect. it runs on 12 volts. Now a good radio 12 volt power supply pricey. My harbor Freight Jump Box has been doing GREAT with no noise and great audio reports on 70cn, 2 meters and 10 meters. (Plus the 11 meter CB band!)

HF radio. HF or high frequency are the bands that start at 10 meters and go all the way to 160 meters. For the technician class we’re limited to 80 meters. HF is where true worldwide communication happens. There are mobile HF radios but most are BIG base stations. Mine is a VERY old Yaesu FT101ZD Built in 1979 its a hybrid of solid state and tubes. Fantastic old radio. I’ve talked around the world with it. ( ON Morse code) One day I may get my General class license, but I have a lot of fun on Morse. The HF radio is where to go if you want worldwide news or coms. They are not portable. Mine weighs @ 35 lbs and the antennas are half wave lengths of copper wire in the trees. If you are going to have radios, I feel that HF should be in your inventory. Oh yes it's on its side. It has feet on it's left side to take up less room. It's big radio.

One that I'm going to add here at the end is not for across the world or even across town. This is for across the homestead or your local neighborhood. It's called POTS Plain Old Telephone Service. There are dozens of videos on youtube on how to set one up. Items needed is 2 phones a pin box wire and a battery. We won't go into it here, y’all can look it up . But it is an idea for calling down to the barn from the house and you don’t want anyone listening in on ya.

And the last thing were going to talk about is the 3-3-3 plan. Survivalist Communicator 3-3-3 Radio Plan

This is the “When, Where, and How” to make radio contact with each other for SHTF. The 333 Radio Plan was designed for SHTF communications.

ABOUT THE 3-3-3 RADIO PLAN

Here’s how the 3-3-3 Radio Plan works:Turn on your radio. Every 3 hours. For at least 3 minutes. Channel 3.

WHEN: EVERY 3 HOURS Always use your Local Time for local area communications with the 3-3-3 Radio Plan. At the “top of the hour”, each 3 hours:Noon, 3pm, 6pm, 9pm.Midnight, 3am, 6am, 9am.

There are advantages and disadvantages to this. An advantage is that it lets you know there are others out there. The disadvantage is that it lets others know YOU’RE out there. And let's be honest. Most preppers follow one main faith. Us polytheists are not the most welcome. That is becoming less common, but it does happen. Here are more details on it. https://radiofreeq.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/3-3-3-radio-plan-for-shtf-communications/

Communication can be as hard and complicated as you want to make it or as easy. But it is pretty vital we form a plan of some type and get communication for any rough times. So get you poop in a group, oil up that ol ratchet jaw and do some rag chewing.

Look me up on 70cm/2 meters in South Carolina, and on 10 and 80 meters when the conditions are good.
Chuck WD5CMH