SHTF Radio Communication POLL. What will you use?

I currently have a scanner and a couple of old car CB radios. I'm interested in something bigger, but just haven't taken the plunge yet.

Last Edited by Resister on 06/18/2012 02:41 PM

Resister you're awesome dude.

I was hoping we could get this going as i have seen a few threads on this kind of thing before over the years, but i have never seen any information about what everybody is using or would use if SHTF.

Personally speaking id be using a combination of Walkie Talkies and vhf/uhf but i have a 25mhz-1300mhz handheld receiver and plan on getting a shortwave too.

If i cant at least find out whats going on locally with those options shit has seriously hit the fan.

I'm in a similar situation, i have a marine radio for my boat and a couple of handheld vhf/uhf radios too.

If i cant carry it or power it on batteries im not really considering it to be honest.

copied my posts from other threads

1 - Shortwave Radio - get a hand crank/solar sw reciever
2 - FRS - Walkie Talkies - dont bother with that crap (a 440handheld ham (FDC 460) can get on thsoe frequencies with 10 times the power) (only do this if emergency)
3 - General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) -(same as FRS but requires a license and if your going to do that just get a ham tech licnese and to 2m and 70cm)
4 - CB ( Citizens Band ) - if u wanna hear crap signals go for it brea break break get on down byebyebye
4 - UHF/VHF Handheld or basestation - get a dual bander HT and mobile (base)
5 - HAM Rig (basestation) at lower frequencies 10meters - get a mobile HF station you can use in a car or as a base... ten tec 555 is a good low cost one, as well as some old kenwoods


What about an old fashioned crystal set? , my dad has a book explaining how to set it all up....(by Marconi)

Quoting: Anonymous Coward 17032261

thign about crystal rigs is that you are then stuck at the frequencies of the crystals and dont ahve the complex variable frequency oscillators that newer rigs have

that being said i still have some 2 meter 6 channel handhelds around here somewhere that run on AAs

but the other thing is that many of the repeaters have tone-in (DCS or CTCSS) codes that cant be done on crystal rigs

most of the sywarn repeaters have 2 types of backup (generator/solar) in my area... repeaters wont even matter if you just get urself an HF rig (even qrp) and u will have more distance than the repeaters will on VHF/UHF

Our clubs 2 meter repeater has taken direct lightning strikes without damage, and there is a backup in the farraday cage at the club office, no matter the situation someone will always have a running repeater

just get urself a 2meter/440 handheld and something to charge it as a backup(small solar panel) so u can hit the repeaters and AMSATs

also a portable HF rig... i have 2, one fo which is a ten tec 556 argo (qrp) in a shielded briefcase with a backup battery, small solar panel, and a dipole antenna

check out some of the ham radio sites like eham and qrz, theres tons of good info there

nothing communicates like a 12 gauge

My mind

Good advice that's exactly my plan and setup..

Exactly right about it being pointless if you have a 2meter/70cm HT (Handheld Transceiver) However I literally have a couple of walkie talkies from a few years back that operate around 440mhz.. They can be AA Battery powered

I kept them and didnt throw them in the trash simply to give them away to friends if we hook up, or as a friendly item gesture to people i may want to communicate with locally.

Flare rounds? Smoke signals?

Morse code in boom boom?

A mesh network of Linksys routers running openwrt

Will do, i just wanted a more GLP centric idea about how we plan on communicating in the event of the internet, phone lines and mobile towers being kaput.

Also bittorrent and btlive for live and other videos. Chat, voip for talking and maybe and email server.

good to network a small area, but nothing compared to ham radio digital modes... software defined HF rigs can support digital communications half way across the world...

Not sure what this is but im guessing you plan on setting up a wireless hotspot with a special linux distro. And then creating a portal you can access wirelessley?

Do you think anybody locally will even be aware?

Without it having a strong transmitter at 2.4ghz how do you plan on communicating with people who may be upto a few km away?

dit dit dit daaah dit daaah

Could you elaborate on how this all works for dummies?

Yeah, thats what i figured..

That guy might be good for a few hundred meters, but compared to somebody using radioteletype with a HT, laptop and a solar charger i dont see how his/her system will help.

RTTY works for hundreds of miles providing you have power for the radio/and or computer, Wireless wont work more than a few hundred feet if the grid goes down and you dont amp the signal.

there is overlap including msyelf between here and there... considering many hams are in skywarn weather radio network, ARES (amateur radio emergency service),MARS (military amateur radio service), RACES (radio amateur civil emergency service)...there is tons of info there about infrastructure going down and alot more advanced info about radios in emergency than you will get here

yep, not to mention mfsk and psk31 :)

Google for Hinternet and OpenHsmm. For amateur radio they are running opensource mesh networks upto 15 miles per node and using external antennas. This could work well for a local community for communications and you could then use CB, UHF/VHF, other HAM bands for long distance voice.

[link to hsmm-mesh.org]

[link to hsmm-mesh.org]

Cool dude, any links?

My initial plan in the event of SHTF is to just monitor freqs to see whats going on, if i hear communication by people who sound like they know what they are doing, but are asking for help i plan on offering help.

I have thought that it could be a trap, but im willing to take my chances in that respect.

That is crazy, wow.

[link to www.arrl.org]

[link to www.arrl.org]

[link to www.arrl.org]

[link to www.eham.net]

[link to forums.qrz.com]

Beyond just keeping an eye on the government chatter (police/emergency) and listening for major news, I want to be able to communicate with my family about 50 miles away and your standard CB radio just isn't going to cut it there.

Beyond the few hundred bucks it would be for a HAM radio, how much antenna would I need to reach out about 50 miles?

i use a sz6bkw (optimized g5rv) dipole antenna nand can contact asia, europe, and south america from here in the midwest on multiple HF bands... antenna is around $70

^meant to type "zs6bkw"

I dont think the antenna is all that important, i believe you can build a pretty good one yourself from copper wire.

The important factors are getting the antenna up high, the frequencies being used to transmit and the wattage of the signal output.

With a system like PSK31 as that guy mentioned you can communicate computer to computer by typing to each other over hundreds of miles on a low power output like 5 watts.

Obviously this is not private, and is illegal without a ham license..

If VHF/UHF repeaters are still up that may still do it.

(For anybody lost at this point - A repeater is kind of like a node setup that receives a signal usually on one frequency say 144mhz and then transmits that same signal back out at much much higher wattages on a slightly different frequency)

It allows a radio using only a couple of watts to effectively send a signal out hundreds of miles.

actually the antenna is the MOST important piece of equipment in a radio station... a random length of wire is not going to be resonant and will not have as good of signal as a tuned antenna... also a non resonant antenna will have a high SWR (standard wave ratio) and msot of the power will be reflected back into the radio which can damage the radio (unless you have an antenna tuner which uses a set of capacitors and inductors to prevent that(another few hundred bucks))

so using a RESONANT antenna will increase the signal recieved and transmitted, you can make one out of a piece of wire but it should be tuned to the band you are using, or like the zskbkw i mentioned, to multiple bands