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2-Way Radios and SHTF

Save your money unless you have a Farady cage.
EMP will fry your Baofeng or HAM rig.

My setup is EMP proof!!!

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Still fail to see how a license helps that, a license is just a piece of paper
By all means go your own way. Let us know how that works out when you try to reach out to licensed HAMs for info and assistance. Maybe you don’t need either and have it all figured out. If that’s the case rock on man. :)
 
The best way to learn about SHTF communications is to join a local ham club. I was first licensed as a novice in 1956 when I was 10 years old. I lived in a small town in Central Florida and there were only 2 other hams in town. One passed away and the other one moved out of state. With no one to help me set up my equipment lost interest for about 25 years. In the 1970s I built an ultralight.aircraft and got my Technicians license so I could use a 2 meter HT to communicate with other hams who were flying ultralights. About this time the local ham club put up a repeater with an autopatch and we could make phone calls with our HTs years before there were any cell phones. I upgraded to General so I could use HF radios. I listen more than I transmit, but I have ability to communicate on all ham bands 160 meters thru 1200 mhz.
 
Still fail to see how a license helps that, a license is just a piece of paper
I will tell you how getting a licence helped me. I got my hands on several study guides for the license test ranging from Technician, General, and Extra. I read them, worked the problems, and learned the material. Now I have a much better foundation and understanding of the technology.

If a person just has a GMRS handheld and his community watch group did as well, you could just arrange everyone to be on the same channel and you'd be golden.

If it ever comes down to more than that, a better understanding will come in nicely.
 
I hadn't thought about this use, but it could come in handy. Many HF base radios are capable of non-ham short wave listening (SWL), and will receive Short Wave radio signals from around the world. So you may be able to pickup SW stations from the BBC, or North Korea, or Australia, ...

That could come in handy if .. Or, it might be fun to listen to those stations during normal times.

Dave Caslar said if you were buying just a SW receiver, you would probably need to spend $300 or more to get a receiver that would do it justice. Maybe he overstated the cost for a sufficiently good receiver in the SW band - maybe he didn't.

But if you had that kind of $$ invested in it, it seems to me that an HF base with SWL capability would be the way to do.
 
I would think that GMRS radios would be very popular among the general public and preppers.

No test is required for a GMRS license. AND

" In addition to the licensed individual .. his or her immediate family members, are allowed to use same said license.
Per FCC, "family members" includes a spouse, children, stepchildren, parents, stepparents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, and in-laws" This is huge!

They can be purchased at relatively low cost. So an entire group can be outfitted for relatively low $.

Certain channels can operate at 50 watts. So even with no, or at least very few, repeaters around several miles could be covered.
 
I would think that GMRS radios would be very popular among the general public and preppers.

No test is required for a GMRS license. AND

" In addition to the licensed individual .. his or her immediate family members, are allowed to use same said license.
Per FCC, "family members" includes a spouse, children, stepchildren, parents, stepparents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, and in-laws" This is huge!

They can be purchased at relatively low cost. So an entire group can be outfitted for relatively low $.

Certain channels can operate at 50 watts. So even with no, or at least very few, repeaters around several miles could be covered.

Additionally, the fee for the license is supposedly dropping from $70 to $35 sometime in the future.
 
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