I have to say, I love how the Doomsday Prepper Forums is organized and laid-out. Need some advice on weapons? Simply go to the weapons forum, and read up on which weapons fit your criteria and would be best for you. Trying to figure out the best way to grow food? Same thing - you'll find the info you're looking for, and how you should apply that info for yourself. You show up with an idea of what information you need, and then you look until you find it.
Communications is, well, different, because a lot of new preppers come to the communications forums already with an idea in mind, of what it is they're looking for. Namely, walkee-talkees and other local communications equipment. This is a fatal mistake. Before you come here and start looking for information, let's take a brief moment to help you understand what it is that you're looking for in the first place. Seeing as how this is a forum for communications in a SHTF scenario, I'm going to help you anticipate some of the things that go along with the SHTF side of the equation that you need to consider:
1. Radios need electricity. Electricity will be a prized commodity after the SHTF. And batteries do not grow on trees. You're going to need a radio that will work, preferably without having to rely on, disposable AA batteries, for example. Sure, you can buy a hundred of them. But, you WILL run out of them one day.
2. It's easy to forget that you aren't the only person out there who has a radio. If you are using a radio to communicate with nearby friends and family, just bear in mind, anyone else out there who has the same kind of radio can hear everything you're saying. You might want to figure out some code words to use ahead of time.
3. Using a radio can get you shelled or bombed by both friendly and enemy military forces. They have the ability to triangulate on your signal and identify your location within seconds. Given how we've fought wars as of late, the artillery guys are very disgruntled having had to sit out on the past few conflicts, and are trigger-happy as hell. So, you are risking your life each time you push that transmit button and start talking.
And those are just the SHTF considerations. So, if you come to this forum with the same mentality as going to the others, you are setting yourself up for failure. To address those 3 SHTF considerations, here are 3 solutions:
1. The most common source of electricity after the SHTF is going to be the trusty 'ole automobile and its 12v battery. Some walkee-talkees have a lighter socket that you can use to power the walkee-talkee and/or charge its batteries. See a walkee-talkee that you like because of its cool color or what-not? Make sure it plugs into a lighter socket and has rechargable batteries. Minimum. Most mobile radios (such as a CB radio) are designed for use in a vehicle. And, it is possible to use a car battery indoors, and charge it with a Solargizer, for example.
2. If you don't want strangers listening in to your conversations, you need a radio (or walkee-talkee) that will either use frequencies (or channels, rather) that are not as commonly used. Or, you will need to be as random as you can with the channels you use and when you use them. Mix it up. All the time.
3. It's important to consider that friendly and enemy forces are going to be spending most (if not all) of their time scanning the most commonly-used radio communications freqs. That means, CB, PMR, FRS, and pretty much everything else you can find at Walmart.
If you insist on using these radios, keep your transmissions as short as possible, use the lowest amount of power necessary, and then get the hell out of the area that you just transmitted in. Or, get yourself a ham radio, and use a very obscure frequency in a range that they aren't even looking at. In fact, that also takes care of #2 as well. There are simply too many frequencies out there, for them to monitor all of them. A ham radio can use frequencies that they never thought existed.
There are many, many more things that play into the SHTF side of things, but I'll just drop these 3 big ones here for now.
Communications is, well, different, because a lot of new preppers come to the communications forums already with an idea in mind, of what it is they're looking for. Namely, walkee-talkees and other local communications equipment. This is a fatal mistake. Before you come here and start looking for information, let's take a brief moment to help you understand what it is that you're looking for in the first place. Seeing as how this is a forum for communications in a SHTF scenario, I'm going to help you anticipate some of the things that go along with the SHTF side of the equation that you need to consider:
1. Radios need electricity. Electricity will be a prized commodity after the SHTF. And batteries do not grow on trees. You're going to need a radio that will work, preferably without having to rely on, disposable AA batteries, for example. Sure, you can buy a hundred of them. But, you WILL run out of them one day.
2. It's easy to forget that you aren't the only person out there who has a radio. If you are using a radio to communicate with nearby friends and family, just bear in mind, anyone else out there who has the same kind of radio can hear everything you're saying. You might want to figure out some code words to use ahead of time.
3. Using a radio can get you shelled or bombed by both friendly and enemy military forces. They have the ability to triangulate on your signal and identify your location within seconds. Given how we've fought wars as of late, the artillery guys are very disgruntled having had to sit out on the past few conflicts, and are trigger-happy as hell. So, you are risking your life each time you push that transmit button and start talking.
And those are just the SHTF considerations. So, if you come to this forum with the same mentality as going to the others, you are setting yourself up for failure. To address those 3 SHTF considerations, here are 3 solutions:
1. The most common source of electricity after the SHTF is going to be the trusty 'ole automobile and its 12v battery. Some walkee-talkees have a lighter socket that you can use to power the walkee-talkee and/or charge its batteries. See a walkee-talkee that you like because of its cool color or what-not? Make sure it plugs into a lighter socket and has rechargable batteries. Minimum. Most mobile radios (such as a CB radio) are designed for use in a vehicle. And, it is possible to use a car battery indoors, and charge it with a Solargizer, for example.
2. If you don't want strangers listening in to your conversations, you need a radio (or walkee-talkee) that will either use frequencies (or channels, rather) that are not as commonly used. Or, you will need to be as random as you can with the channels you use and when you use them. Mix it up. All the time.
3. It's important to consider that friendly and enemy forces are going to be spending most (if not all) of their time scanning the most commonly-used radio communications freqs. That means, CB, PMR, FRS, and pretty much everything else you can find at Walmart.
If you insist on using these radios, keep your transmissions as short as possible, use the lowest amount of power necessary, and then get the hell out of the area that you just transmitted in. Or, get yourself a ham radio, and use a very obscure frequency in a range that they aren't even looking at. In fact, that also takes care of #2 as well. There are simply too many frequencies out there, for them to monitor all of them. A ham radio can use frequencies that they never thought existed.
There are many, many more things that play into the SHTF side of things, but I'll just drop these 3 big ones here for now.
