Comment by nunobrito a day ago
My suggestion as someone preparing for this kind of stuff since quite a while:
+ Quangsheng UV-K5 + Android phone with 3.5 mm audio jack + APRSdroid installed
Forget about LoRa, that is basically a toy. It is far more useful to have a functioning walkie talkie capable of talking with satellites and other stations at 50 kilometers of range.
The issue with satellite stuff, is that it’s pretty sensitive to active attack. It will be available for things like natural disasters, but not necessarily for war.
In either case, jamming is a possibility.
That is inaccurate. You will NOT be able to jam a satellite outside local areas, the amount of power to do is monstrous and likely to cause cancer for anyone around.
In a real scenario these things work. Please don't fall into "what if's" which are exotic and confused as things bigger than what they are.
Well, from the comments, here, this sounds like a passionate topic, for folks.
I've always been interested in helping folks that help folks.
I started looking at Meshtastic, some years ago, but found the ecosystem to be a bit overly-complex, as is often the case, with "Swiss Army Knife" approaches.
> You will NOT be able to jam a satellite outside local areas
It is true that you will not be able to jam the _downlink_ frequency outside local areas.
But due to the FM capture effect, anyone else in the same hemisphere with a basic 100w transmitter (and appropriate antenna) on the _uplink_ frequency will be able to deny the satellite service to all the 5W Baofeng radios that preppers are stockpiling.
That level of argument is already at Reddit level where every little detail is a reason to be "right". This is tiresome.
Look: if someone is jamming something with a 100 watt transmitter which causes impact on the adversary, that location is quickly bombed because it is now a giant beacon that advertises its position.
I'll even throw a cheap appeal to authority and mention that I've done this stuff professionally in the military for a decade. I'll still trust more on the usability of my cheap walkie-talkie capable of +50km range and satellite texts than an exotic LoRa used on the ground by few internet warriors.
I think the Internet warriors are trying to build their own entirely self-sufficient network independent of the state or commercial worlds, which is, as you say, tricky to do only with resources legally available to the general public. Armed forces have had these things nailed down pretty much since the invention of radio.
That is indeed true. Practicing is important. To remember: APRS is available on other frequencies and methods, one does not need a radio license to receive text messages.
APRS is friendly enough to permit sending messages using normal internet and receiving messages from friends while on the outdoors. However, all of this requires practice and know-how.
> Forget about LoRa, that is basically a toy. It is far more useful to have a functioning walkie talkie capable of talking with satellites and other stations at 50 kilometers of range.
You’re not going to reliably get that without terrestrial infrastructure, unless both you and your correspondent are conveniently standing on mountaintops.
5km in the suburbs, maybe. Closer to 500m at street level in an urban environment.