Article: Survival Radios: Understanding U.S. Radio Types, Licenses & Gear

While well intended, there does seem to be a lot of articles sorta like this one, that tell people to 'go out and buy a such-and-such radio' as if doing so will help any in a 'survival situation.'

I really don't understand what people imagine they will be able to do with these things. This is coming from a career in communications technology and being a licensed, active amateur operator for 46 years.
 
Just like anything, the tools should not come before the plan. I have 4 radios, all set to the same freq, with instructions to the wife that if I do t come home from a hike, to go to the trailhead and try to raise me and then give the radio to whoever show up for rescue. IOW, a plan. Maybe not a perfect plan, but a plan.
 
Button Pusher said:
I think most folks will be better off with an old AM radio and a CB radio. I too am a licensed amateur.
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Likewise. Licensed here also. CB radios would be important to have I think. I can do that as well.
 
There is a saying about no plan surviving contact with the enemy. This last Saturday, my auxcomm group did a simulation exercise. The exercise attempted to simulate a possible real world event. For the purposes of the exercise, a derecho (straight line) storm moved through knocking out power, internet, and POTS). We at the county EOC (really, and yes we have an official station at the county facility in the radio room) were to simulate being at a shelter and establishing communications with a simulated county and state EOC. Repeaters, it turned out were off line (in reality, the one we were using at Firetower Rd is down, W4UNC was having their net, and the one in Siler City ?). We couldn’t achieve any VHF / UFH direct. contact. Now, this is a building mounted antenna at 50 watts, what do you think your <2watt GMRS handheld is going to do?

We could make contact with the guy simulating the State EOC via HF voice, but not the guy simulating county (but the State guy could). WE had a group of guys conducting a net on top of of chosen frequency, and need ed a plan to adapt,/ change and had them, well meaning, trying to intervene in our exercise to complicate things. We were able to use a computer and radio program called Winkink to send a series of messages to the State EOC using a relay in SC via PACTOR. The use of that relay requires knowledge well beyond the average amateur and certainly beyond the typical doomsday prepper who is going to stick a baofeng in his go bag.

Of course, while we were at it, Mr. Murphy proved to be a real mother. One of the guys accidentally started to transmit a digital signal into an improperly tuned antenna at 100 watts and popped some fuses. Needless to say, hams are resourceful and we were shorty back on the air.

Spend the $12 and get your damned ticket and spend some time with this stuff. Your life may depend on it.
 
I have people ask me all the time about radios for shtf or whatever. After explaining how it works and that it’s not just buy a $20 radio and talk to anyone you want too. Most are not interested anymore. The ones who still are, I point to gmrs. I am President of a county club, not going to post where, but have had several people come to meetings and after figuring out we are not all preppers or whatever else, not come back. Radio has its purpose but it isn’t as simple or cheap as people think it is.
 
JW1987 said:
Radio has its purpose but it isn’t as simple or cheap as people think it is.
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Roger, W4AYO, once said to me: if ham radio could be understood in a day it wouldn’t be any fun.

It’s like the sound the golf ball makes when it goes in the cup, certain things bring you back. For me, I remember talking to the guy driving down the highway in Tanzania was memorable. Another was the guy calling CQ on 40m. Turns out he just got his ticket and put a mobile HF in his truck. He was clear as a bell, so I responded. He said he was driving around Dallas and asked if I were in Dallas too. I said, nope, I’m in central NC. He shouted, “WHAT??? North Carolina? As I said, I’m new to this”. The power of a lightbulb, a wire strung up in a tree and I had a conversation with a guy almost 1,200 miles away. Pure magic.
 
Also, I meant no ill will toward anyone who wants radio for those situations. I am more than willing to help anyone interested in the radio hobby. I just find a lot of people want to push button and talk. There are better alternatives to ham for this, plus no test and get most of the capabilities of uhf ham.
 
noway2 said:
Roger, W4AYO, once said to me: if ham radio could be understood in a day it wouldn’t be any fun.

It’s like the sound the golf ball makes when it goes in the cup, certain things bring you back. For me, I remember talking to the guy driving down the highway in Tanzania was memorable. Another was the guy calling CQ on 40m. Turns out he just got his ticket and put a mobile HF in his truck. He was clear as a bell, so I responded. He said he was driving around Dallas and asked if I were in Dallas too. I said, nope, I’m in central NC. He shouted, “WHAT??? North Carolina? As I said, I’m new to this”. The power of a lightbulb, a wire strung up in a tree and I had a conversation with a guy almost 1,200 miles away. Pure magic.
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I was driving by Lake Wylie south of Charlotte when I hear a CQ call on the VHF call frequency, which I picked up on a scan. Dude was on a motorcycle, running a standard mobile unit, up on the Blue Ridge Parkway at an overlook! Talk about line of sight!
Another time, picked up a guy on 20m, on the upper peninsula of Lake Michigan in a hunting blind, in winter. He was running a QRP rig (10 watts) on a battery.
 
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georgel said:
I was driving by Lake Wylie south of Charlotte when I hear a CQ call on the VHF call frequency, which I picked up on a scan
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VHF (2m) can do some pretty amazing things under the right, but rare, conditions. I was talking with W4AYO one morning in the late spring and a warm front was coming in and it formed some tropospheric ducting along the east coast. You can tell when this is happening because you'll hear the "womp womp womp" sound of carrier heterodyne from other repeaters on the same frequency and also pick up pieces of conversation in the squelch tail.

Anyway, this one particular morning, we were on a 2m repeater near Battleground Ave in Greensboro, talking to a guy on the beach in Charleston, SC using an HT on 1 watt (full quieting) and we were getting reports that our conversation was being picked up in NY and CT.
 
Tropo is cool. There was some this morning. I heard an out of state repeater on a semi local repeaters freq, didn’t copy the callsign so no clue where it was. I’m into 2m ssb, 200w and a 7el yagi at 30’. Qrp-ish hf is also my fav.
 
noway2 said:
VHF (2m) can do some pretty amazing things under the right, but rare, conditions.
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My longest 2M FM repeater contact was from Mint Hill to Woodbridge, NJ.

On 10M, when conditions are right, I have connected to a series of 10M FM repeaters scattered throughout the country. They were all on the same frequency and no tone. It was an unexpected experience about 10 years ago.
 
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htperry said:
On 10M, when conditions are right, I have connected to a series of 10M FM repeaters scattered throughout the country. They were all on the same frequency and no tone. It was an unexpected experience about 10 years ago.
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Thats cool!

I have limited experience with the higher frequency HF bands. When I was a new ham, I did field day with the HP club. I got put on a 10m antenna with my rig. From noon till early evening, there was a band opening and it was neat in that it moved around the country, from the upper west, to the Midwest, to the northeast, but then closed after that and the rest of the time I got a lot of static. Needless to say, it wasn’t a way to make for a happy ham and turned me off to field day.

The next year, I coached KN4JOX and we got put on the damned 10 meter station AGAIN but it, 12m, and 15m, which my tuner could beer goggle, were all dead. We packed up and went home. We came back Sunday and as luck would have it, one guy tuned his Elecraft to a band someone else was using right as they transmitted at 100w and popped his PIN diode. Since he was out of the game, we got on his antenna on 40m. You should have seen Lacey chase those contacts. The XYL effect coupled with the coastal NC accent on a radio that was filter tuned for voice power on SSB got through A LOT of pile up’s and the experience created a ham radio monster. She said, though, that if her experience was limited to Saturday she would never have bothered to upgrade to HF.
 
10 has been open a lot lately. Some real good dx to be found. 15 and 12 have been good too. Enjoy it while we can. I got my tech and a 10m only radio during the bottom of a cycle and it was truly disheartening to hear nothing for years.
 
This is my 5th sunspot cycle peak coming up and 10 is always the money band during these times. DX is great as is 10M AM up above 29.0.

Yrs ago, when there were HF packet BBS's, it was a hoot to check into those in Chile, and Brazil which always seemed to be reachable during the late afternoon hours during a sunspot peak. It was slow and QSB forced retries, but it was quite a hoot to do in the late 80s

10 is a fun band and I'm looking forward to getting my yagi back on the tower and enjoying it.
 
I keep waiting on 6 to open good. Spurts here and there but this summer it never took off. I’m in the process of a tower right now. I run 5el on 6m and 300 or so watts but want to put it up about 60 feet.
 
I've only made a couple of 6M QSO's in my career, but I've come to believe that when openings happen, they're spectacular.

Do you use any sort of DXspot, or band opening aid? I run a QRSS monitor on 10M and I'm sure there's some for 6 that will provide the same sort of "training aid" to help document when and to where band openings are happening.

swharden.com

QRSS Plus

Live radio spectrograms from QRSS grabbers around the world
swharden.com swharden.com


There's some good info there that might help give a heads up when 6 is happening. I have a DX spot app on my phone that can be configured as band-specific for the same purpose.

That said we've got a couple more yrs of good openings so the story goes!

60' tower and 300W from a yagi should make you quite loud when 6 is open.
 
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I have several propagation and spotting tools I use. The 6m setup does pretty good for me. It works pretty good locally too. I can talk to the mountains, southern va, and down into sc with ease on that setup. Depends on terrain and which way I’m pointing. 6 gets overlooked for local comms and I think it can out do 2m for that purpose, everyone gets 6m so I wish it was used more. Just not many repeaters around for 6 so I guess it gets forgotten about.
 
noway2 said:
. When I was a new ham, I did field day with the HP club. I got put on a 10m antenna with my rig. From noon till early evening, there was a band opening and it was neat in that it moved around the country, from the upper west, to the Midwest, to the northeast, but then closed after that and the rest of the time I got a lot of static. Needless to say, it wasn’t a way to make for a happy ham and turned me off to field day.
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Pity the poor 160M ops! :)
 
JW1987 said:
. 6 gets overlooked for local comms and I think it can out do 2m for that purpose, everyone gets 6m so I wish it was used more. Just not many repeaters around for 6 so I guess it gets forgotten about.
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My minimal 6M experience has been local-ish and I was quite surprised how capable it was in that , you're right.

There used to be local 10M nets but everyone ignores 6 (perhaps because of the lack of coverage on many radios? Dunno...)
 
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I need to work more 160. I’ve got a ladder line fed 160m inverted v up at 70’ sloping down to about 15’ on the ends. 160 is awesome if the noise is down in the winter. I have a receive only loop to help with noise on the low bands. No electrical noise here just atmospherics.
 
JW1987 said:
I have several propagation and spotting tools I use. The 6m setup does pretty good for me. It works pretty good locally too. I can talk to the mountains, southern va, and down into sc with ease on that setup. Depends on terrain and which way I’m pointing. 6 gets overlooked for local comms and I think it can out do 2m for that purpose, everyone gets 6m so I wish it was used more. Just not many repeaters around for 6 so I guess it gets forgotten about.
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I agree, 6m would be good for local / regional. I believe there is a repeater in southern, central, VA that a ham in WS I know uses. Might be worth looking into.

JW1987 said:
I need to work more 160. I’ve got a ladder line fed 160m inverted v up at 70’ sloping down to about 15’ on the ends. 160 is awesome if the noise is down in the winter. I have a receive only loop to help with noise on the low bands. No electrical noise here just atmospherics.
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160 is nice. I had a double G5RV that JOX and her husband help put up. Worked great, low noise. Unfortunately, half of it came down in a storm the next spring and the stupid puppy “tuned“ it for me, if you catch my meaning. I have a vertical that I plan to put up instead, but that will be a good spring project. Also have a large (tallest model) Diamond 2m/70cm that I am thinking of having the GC mount on the roof pitch / eve for me when they’re on that side of the house with ladders doing the shutters.
 
I’d like to do a vertical for dx on 160 or an inverted L.
May as well have them do it while they are up there.
There are a few 6m repeaters around. There is one around Cleveland,nc and one on sauratown mtn where that fire was the other week. I know the guy that owns them but haven’t seen if they are both running in a while. I need a 5/8 wave 6m vertical. I mostly stick to sideband on 6, some digital too.
 
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