CB/Ham Radio - Suggestions?

Trust me friend if you refer to a type of Radio as "shoulder mounted" you will most likely die in a time of crisis. A radio of any kind or a survival kit for that matter will not be needed. Good Luck!

Just kidding friend go with a 10 meter export preferably a Galaxy, Connex is ok to. Then find a good radio shop. Have them peak and allign the radio for you. This means that the radio will transmit on maximum wattage probably 100-200 watts. Way above the legal 4 watts. The allignment will allow you to talk in the 27mhz band. I like this set up because you are able to talk within the regular 10 meter Ham bands, plus the free bands, and the CB bands. Which basically means at the right times you have global communication capibilities. Be warned though this set up is illegal, however most truck drivers have them and every cb shop in the country does these types of modifications everyday. This set up will be mobile but not hand held, most handheld units suck in my opinion unless you are near a repeater system, in time of crisis who knows if repeaters will even be on line. Good Luck!

I've been talking about this on the survival forum since it came online. HAM is the way to go. Forget all the CB mods and the like. Atmospheric conditions change and the usability of the various bands change with it. You need the ability to be able to work multiple bands.

Getting a HAM license is easy. A little studying, there are free online test prep sites and you're good to go. They publish the actual questions pools.

I have a fully portable digital setup. My main radio can work all bands from 160m (1.8MHz) up through 70cm (~450MHz) in all modes. It can run on AC, external battery (or car), has internal NiCADs and I have a small hand-crank generator that can power it or charge the batteries. I can use a long-wire antenna strung in trees with my antenna tuner and have talked to people from coast-to-coast, Canada, Central and South America, Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia, the Caribbean and the South Pacific. On a wire antenna and no external amplifier. Do that with your converted CB.

I can easily do voice and in a pinch morse (although my morse is pretty rusty). With a laptop and an interface I can also do digital which, like morse, is a relatively low-power easy way to communicate. The entire rig: radio, antenna tuner, digital interface, and laptop are easily portable. I also have three multi band hand helds that can communicate with the main rig.

It's not dirt cheap but it isn't really expensive either. Given what some people are spending on guns this is nothing. And if the SHTF, information is goinmg o be a helluva lot more important than most people think.

reply to post by guppy

Greetings guppy,

Here's a very belated reply, applicable to the US, and maybe to other countries.

Non-crisis situation. If you possess a ham radio and you're out of cellular range and in distress (ie, medical emergency etc), you can legally use the radio (gasp! without a license) anyway to call for help (ie mayday). If someone wants to dog you while you're in the hospital, tell 'em to have at it.

Crisis situation, worst case. Iran and/or nK decide to carry out nuclear strikes on the US., to the point or partially to the point, that government becomes ineffective.

If time permits before the strikes, attempt to disconnect and shield the radio, (ie. underground, lead lined box),with whatever you can, to protect the radio and the portable power source from an EMP burst.

After the laydown (assuming nK or Iran have expended their long range nukes), then you would probably initially prefer to operate anonymously as you query for other survivors. If the laydown is of such magnitude that FCC licensing doesn't matter, then use the equipment as you see fit, to carry out post strike survival communications. Minimize transmissions to conserve battery power.

There are operators out there who might be offended by this message, "ohhhh noooo, you can't operate without a license/callsign!" If the FCC is a smoking hole, it doesn't matter.

The FCC has procedures for ordering the cessation of all ham radio transmissions in a crisis (as was done during World War II), but, again, that depends upon whether or not there is enough government structure left to execute those policies.

If you have time, you might want to get licensed in order to become a proficient user of the equipment. Familiarity with area repeaters could be useful in a post strike environment, in case any are far enough from a nuclear laydown to survive. Repeaters are usually high atop mountains and towers, and they become vulnerable in a nuclear environment, even if they use solar/wind power, as many of them do.

There is a ham radio simulator that might be useful toward deciding if you want to engage in the activity during peacetime, if you can come up with non-emergency reasons to spend money and pursue it. www.hamsphere.com... Today's criteria for messing with ham radio is (1) time on your hands, and (2) money. In the past, beating AT&T long distance toll charges via ham-operators with phone patches, made the activity useful.

Hope this helps,
Cheers