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Communications Options

2024 02 02

Most people leave comms to the last thing they add to their preps, or at least the last thing they get around to doing something about. Why? It really should be one of the first things you think about having some backup to other than your cell phone. It’s just a guess, and some folks have told me, “its techie stuff,” “its not as fun as thing that go boom.” That may be true but as many military folks know, without comms your don’t have shit. Without comms you don’t know what is going on outside of your immediate view, but a scanner would allow you to listen to many frequencies. Without comms you can’t communicate to your neighbors and friends to hear what they are seeing or hearing. Without comms you can’t communicate to friends and family that may be hundreds of miles away.

Adding a number of Baofengs to your preps with the attitude “I’ll take them out of the box when SHTF” isn’t going to work as you will have a steep learning curve. If you’ve ever had to apply a trauma dressing, or tourniquet, under pressure you know you don’t have time to read the label, if you have practiced its second nature. If you’ve ever had to change a car tire and have never done it before, heck don’t even know where the spare is, you can get panicked and frustrated. If you have to do it on the side of the interstate in the dark, well that’s a whole new level of panic. So what makes you think you can get a piece of technical equipment out of the box, know how to program it, heck even know what frequencies to put in it or talk on, and who are you going to call, when the power is out, the phones don’t work, its dark and all your senses are firing and your are excited because “it’s finally happened, all the things I’ve prepped for, I’ve got this.” But then realize “I don’t have a plan, I’ve not practiced this with my family, I’m a days walk or more from home, and everyone is loosing their shit.” I hope you get where I’m going 🙂

A question that comes up often is: “What are my options for being able to communicate in/after SHTF?” (or similar). In fact I was asked this question just a day ago and that was the prompt to actually put it in writing. The answer to this is not straightforward, if you’ve asked me this question you know I start off my saying “it depends.”

It Depends

There are many factors to consider, these include:

  • What kind or scenario/event are you thinking of?
  • Have you done your personal preparedness assessment and know what event(s) are most likely to happen where you live, the probability, the impact of events and how prepared you are? (if not see my Personal Preparedness Assessment Workbook)
  • Are you considering just the SHTF or TEOTWAWKI event?
  • Who might you want to communicate with?
  • How far away are they, or are they likely to be?
  • What is the terrain around you and between places you want to communicate?
  • What is your budget?

The Most Likely Events

Most likely events are things like tornadoes, hurricanes, severe thunderstorms, winter weather and power outages (likely due to one of the events mentioned).

In these situations the area of impact is limited, although could be several miles of impact. If you can reach outside the “zone of impact” the chances are that communications are intact. With a tornado you could easily reach out 5-10 miles with a handheld radio (5 watts) and find a working repeater to communicate on WITH an after-market antenna (not the stock antennas), but that also depends on your terrain, height of the repeater and other factors. With a larger area of impact, like a hurricane, you might be able to reach a repeater 20-30 miles away with a mobile radio (50 watts). In may instances the internet is still available if you have power to your router. In which case you might have email, use your cell to call/text over the internet (assuming no cell service) or even connect with a multi-mode digital voice modem (MMDVM) to reach friends and family across the country who have similar capability. With cell service, or service over the internet, you can also use voice-over-IP apps like Zello to push-to-talk to a group of friends.

For local communications, within the are of impact you are most likely to need or use a hand-held radio. There are a number of options here. The Family Radio Service (FRS) (“bubble pack”) radios are limited to 0.5 watts and will not reach far, maybe a 1/4 mile if you are lucky. FRS radios do not require a license.

The General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) authorizes up to 50 watts, but a hand-held is 5 watts. It does require a license which is $35, for 10 years, and covers everyone in your household. In some areas you might find repeaters that will extend your range of a handled out to about 30 miles and I’ve some in my area that reach 50 miles or more (because they are on high sites, like a mountain). If the repeater is outside the area of impact, and you can reach it with your handheld, you have extended the range of your radio. If it is inside the impact area, survived damage and has power, even a generator, then you have comms. You can search for GMRS repeaters in your area at mygmrs.com. You can get GMRS radios in a mobile configuration at 25 watts or 50 watts and as these are 12 volts you can run them off a car battery in an emergency.

The “next-level” is getting an Amateur Radio (ham) license. The “entry level” Technician exam is 35 questions and your license is valid for 10 years. While a handheld radio is still only 5 watts you have access to many more frequencies and there are lots of ham repeaters around. Many support local emergency management and many have backup power. If you have a MMDVM and internet available then you can communicate across the country, even the world, with a handheld radio. We have someone checking in on the Monday evening Stump Knocker net from Australia.

By doing some homework you can determine what repeaters near you

If you upgrade your ham license to General then you can set up a high frequency (HF) radio. With a suitable antenna you can communicate around the world without any infrastructure. You can send email, pictures, talk via voice or text applications (which work better when atmospheric conditions are bad).

The Big One

OK so lets answer what most think of when they get to the reason for their question. Now if you are one of those who have left getting your comms in order as one of the last steps in your prepping you are not thinking of ‘every day’ use or common disasters like extended power outage, tornadoes or hurricanes. You are probably thinking that you are only going to need comms when the SHTF or TEOTWAWKI events. First let me say how wrong that thinking is 🙂 There are many situations that occur, some of which I’ve mentioned above, why you would need your own comms and not rely on the infrastructure.

However, let us assume that it is the big one. Well you are going to need tactical comms that you can use locally with your neighbors the see what is going on in your local area. You are going to need handheld radios for this. GMRS is going to allow you to stock some cheaper radios to hand out without having to worry about a license. However, ham gives you VHF frequencies, which will typically travel further, and you have many more frequencies available to you.

HF is going to be needed to talk outside your area, although you will mostly be listening to gather intelligence as to what is going on, where and how big the event is.

The Bottom Line

Budget is going to play some role, GMRS radios are typically cheaper with handheld being found for about $60 or less. Hams radios at the cheap end are around $60-100. If you want to add the digital capabilities of Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) then you are looking around $350. Now the advantage is that some DMR radios, having originally been developed for commercial use, have encryption capabilities. So in a true SHTF you could utilize that. Mobile radios for GMRS can be found for around $150 (25 watts). A mobile ham radio is going to be around $200-400 depending on capabilities. Analog only radios will be cheaper whereas digital capable radios will be more expensive.

If you add a MMDVM (need a ham license) you can communicate with anyone who has a similar setup with even the lowest bandwidth or internet.

You have to also consider you need to learn how to program the radios. You also need to know how they will work, how far you can practically use them in your location and develop good communication skills.

So, as you do with any other “toy” you need to learn how to use it and become proficient. Throwing lead downrange is a lot of fun and develops your skills and could save your life. Good radio skills allow you to know what threats are in your area with lookouts, being concise and clear in communicating, knowing where you can communicate from and to and being aware of what is going on out there, what might be threats to you, could save you getting into a situation where you are out-manned and out-gunned.

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