Comment by misteriji2

Comment by misteriji2 a day ago

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Your neighbor has access to a car, but still hasn't got around to get his drivers licence. In a proper crisis, he'll google "how to drive a car?" and "what does the third pedal do in a car?", and won't worry about being prosecuted by the driving authority.

You will in turn have to share the road with him in the same way as other radio amateurs (and possibly rescue services) will have to share the spectrum with you. You transmitting on a repeaters input frequency without a subtone set will in turn jam the repeater (PLL is before the TSQL) will make communications impossible in the same way as your neigbor stuck in the middle of the road with a burnt clutch will make driving impossible for others.

But hey, stay lazy, don't get a licence, i'm sure you'll be able to figure it all out fast when you're knee deep in flood waters.

elevation a day ago

> i'm sure you'll be able to figure it all out fast

Even if you do, a radio by itself is useless unless you can trust the people on the other end.

Perhaps your generator won’t start. A voice on the radio sounds like a mechanic and claims you need a new spark plug. He can offer you one if you can meet him in a neighborhood 3 minutes from your house. Is this a benevolent actor with small engine expertise and a garage full of spare parts? A well meaning elderly man with dementia? An opportunist luring you into a robbery?

You lose a tremendous tactical advantage in this situation if you’ve never met any local radio operators, gotten a sense of where they live and what they do for a living. Some are skilled experts. Some are blowhards who confidently give bad advice. Some live near you. Some are 100 miles away. You can figure it out, but it takes time that you don’t have in the middle of a disaster.

Get your license. Join your local Amateur Radio Club. Use your radio to chat with someone at least once a week. If you have signal quality issues, experiment with upgrading your equipment. Then the radio in your bug out bag will be of some value to you.

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  • nunobrito a day ago

    That is one of the best comments here and reasons for any prepper to consider a radio license.

    Human networks can be stronger than radio waves, join your local radio club.

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nunobrito a day ago

You don't need a radio license to receive radio messages, that is valid also for satellite messages received on walkie-talkies.

This fact alone is incredibly important to at the very minimum known what the heck is going on. Suddenly you have a cheap device in your hands that can receive updates relevant to survivors and victims.

In Portugal exist the 3-3-3 plans for anyone to practice using a radio. These are regular-weekly sessions with a lot of people joining.

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  • misteriji2 a day ago

    But who will send messages to you? Including satellite messages?

    In most countries emergency services have moved over to tetra or dmr, with encryption, and all the public related info is broadcasted on "normal" broadcast fm, where you need a normal fm radio, not a ham transciever.

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    • nunobrito a day ago

      That is a question you can answer yourself when trying it out.

      In Portugal +90% of tetra stopped working. DMR only locally.

      Satellite APRS continued working. Who will listen? Well, those from north to south on the country were listening. More important, they were listening who was still active because those were the stations running with their own energy because even FM stations started to go down quickly as the generators ran out of fuel.

      Had the blackdown lasted a week, those with a 20 euros walkie-talkies would very likely be the only ones still capable of +50 km distance communications and +1700 km reach using satellite APRS text messages.

      Try to see from it from that perspective. You really won't have electricity nor cellphone coverage and not even FM in such scenario.. It's all gone.

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