Survive Infinite Dangers: The Family Survival Guide of 21st Century Dangers (23 page)

When buying your ham radio walkie-talkies, it might be a good idea (but not critical) to buy the same brand of long-distance high-frequency transceiver (coming up) as the walkie-talkies. Another option to consider is an external hand-held yagi antenna that takes the place of the short “whip” antenna that comes with each walkie-talkie. The yagi antenna provides directivity just like shining a flashlight. You’ll improve the distance by five to ten times. This might really come in handy if a friend has another SA across town but marginal radio-wise with just a rod antenna. A two-meter Yagi antenna might just do the trick. No need to buy a big one – just enough to provide an “adequate” signal and adequate reception. Don’t be surprised if you run across others on the ham band. But there are so many “channels” you will not have an interference problem. As stated before, be careful about giving away your location even to the extent of not transmitting more than you have to so as to minimize “bad guys” with a smitten of technical knowledge figure out how to use their walkie-talkie to “direction find” you. Remain stealth except to those you are absolutely sure about and that probably means no one you didn’t meet and work out a communications and mutual aid agreement between your safe area and theirs beforehand.

Ham radio is the best in almost all circumstances for short-range (and definitely for long range) communications. But it’s also not the cheapest and you have much to buy to “prepare”. If all you wish to do is listen to world events buying the Kaito KA-500 is all you to buy.

What’s next? It depends where you live. If you live inland and not near a very large lake the marine band frequencies are probably empty 99.99% of the time. There are many channels and the radios have about the same distance capability as ham radio but there are no repeaters and no local clubs and no national organization (like the ARRL) to help you along. Beware of the stated distance capability as that is usually over water and radio waves transmit much greater distances over water. In your situation you’re probably in an urban or suburban situation so plan on a few miles. There are not many channels but you’ll have plenty since if you are in, say, Omaha you are probably the only one who thought of this (not many Lake Michigan size lakes or oceans near Omaha). The author owns no marine radios (I live in Kansas) although I know Yaesu and others who make amateur radio equipment also manufacture marine radios. Unless you buy an expensive high frequency ocean going radio there are enough exemptions that you shouldn’t need a license for a small VHF marine walkie-talkie but ask the marine store you buy it from. It appears a license is nothing more than filling out a brief F.C.C. form. Google the term marine radios for lots of information. A quick perusal of prices indicates they are often more expensive than ham radio walkie-talkies. Note this is MARINE radio and not aircraft radios. Transmitting on a aircraft frequency (unless you are a pilot in an aircraft) is illegal and carries heavy fines for such activity. So don’t even think about buying aircraft radios. What does marine have going for it? Privacy but then so does ham radio.

What next? Something new called “Family Radio” short for Family Radio Service (FRS). There are 14 channels and can be bought for very cheap prices and used without a license. Quality, power and specifications vary by price. You’ve probably seen these sold by the pair in tourist areas, sporting goods stores and even Walmart! Distance is usually a mile or two. What are the advantages? They are cheap and require no license. Disadvantages are short distance and interference (virtually every hunter and outdoors type owns a pair). They operate at about 462 MHz so some of the downsides (there are no upsides) of Citizens Band radio go away at this higher frequency but you’ll be sharing fourteen channels with thousands of others who bought a pair and stuck them away for such an occasion as this. Most likely they did not wrap them in aluminum foil so 99% are fried except for the few that are packed with the antenna detached. FRS is definitely better than nothing if you want to keep your price way down.

There must be something else besides commercial business radios (like for taxi cabs). Yes, there is, GMRS! GMRS is an abbreviation for General Mobile Radio Service. The GMRS has been transformed from the now antiquated Class A section of the Citizens Radio Service to the personal radio service available for conducting an individual's personal and family communications. They operate in the same frequency band area as FRS but there is a world of difference. The transmit power can be much greater than FRS and the equipment is not “toy-like” (a pair of working FRS walkie-talkies often sell for less than $20). “You get what you pay for. You have to apply for a license although no test is involved. Just fill out an F.C.C. form and include $85 BUT at the present time and probably for good GMRS is meant for business use. A corporation or partnership can apply for one. Hopefully you are self-employed owning a company and would find radio communications with your workers helpful. There are 22 channels so you would experience some interference but you’d also have greater range. Licensing requirements are widely ignored. The author does not encourage ignoring any law even if everyone else does so. I’ll just refer you to the Wikipedia definition of GMRS. What you do is up to you.

So what is my recommendation? If moderate cost is OK then amateur radio wins hands down. These two-meter walkie-talkies may be used with a very simple to pass no-Morse code 35 question test. They are multiple-choice and you can take the test over and over again. You simply cannot fail but you should study for a few hours so you know the basics of operating your new radio. Most ham radio clubs offer training and they give the tests usually for less than $20. The advantages of ham radio are so great and the extra money so little that the choice is a “no-brainer”. But if price must be really low budget then buy a pair of FRS radios. You’ll have communications for a few thousand feet to a mile even if “the whole world is listening”.

I don’t think I need to say much about the uses of short-distance radios other than (1)keep all batteries charged (2)remove the batteries and keep the radios double wrapped in aluminum foil or in your trashcan (3) use the radios to keep in touch with members of your group who venture into the world while it is still quite dangerous and keeping in touch with other nearby groups who you’ve met in advance and worked out plans such as “mutual aid and mutual defense agreements”. Perhaps a group six blocks away has a doctor in it while you are a plumber. One GROUP runs out of a vital item while another group has plenty to spare. There is strength in numbers! Communications can provide you those numbers. As mentioned before the optimum group I can envision short of a hollowed out granite mountain is a cul-de-sac populated by like-minded people all with their own well secured basement SA and the street barricaded with members of the group of groups providing around the clock guard duty at the well barricaded entrance to the cul-de-sac. I say that knowing the chances of convincing, say, ten families to buy a copy of this book and become a group then join your neighborhood group of groups is very unlikely. Most people will blow you off. As I have said, “don’t push it” when they laugh and walk away. Why? When disaster happens they will be rushing to your house demanding to be let in and share all your supplies with them. “I’m ready to join your survival whatever you called it now – PLEASE let us in!” You do not want that. Either they say yes the first time or don’t bring it up again and add them to the list of people who should not know what you are doing with UPS showing up at your door all the time. Stealth, stealth, stealth!

Long Distance High Frequency Transceivers

Now let’s talk about long-distance transceiver type radios. There is really only one kind to consider – amateur radio. Also, if you do buy a two-way high frequency long distance radio, it will be one of your most expensive purchases in all you buy. So decide if just listening to, say, Europe and Japan is enough or you believe you will need to communicate overseas. If not, just purchase the shortwave radio I recommended the Kaito Voyager KA-500. If you do want to buy one that also transmits, proceed on.

Within the last few years companies I’ve already named have begun selling really nice five watt (and most are adjustable to even lower power) high frequency (HF) transceivers. HF is the AM broadcast band up to 30 megahertz, VHF (very high frequency) extends up to above the two-meter ham band and UHF (ultra high frequency) extends to several thousand megahertz and above that. You have no need for any UHF equipment. On the other hand HF is also called “short wave”. That’s where when radio conditions are good (i.e. lots of sunspots) you can talk and hear all over the world. This is unlike the two-meter ham band where it’s line of sight plus a few miles usually. You can buy transceivers for not much more money that transmit 100 to 200 watts. Buy a higher power one IF only if it has a low power setting. 200 watts will run down a 12 volt car battery pretty fast. Keep your transmit time to a minimum. The receivers in all of these transceivers draw minimal current so you can listen for days hooked to a car battery without having to recharge the battery. A couple of solar panels and a control system will work just fine. Refer to the Electric Power section coming up later in this chapter. Five watts and a decent antenna will provide you communications to other continents! You may be the only “radio station” all of Europe is hearing from North America.

Yes, an HF transceiver does require a higher level of license to operate but the test is very easy compared to what it was just a few years ago. You’ll need the information no matter what to know how to adjust the radio and antennas. The radio stores already listed will be happy to give you some good choices and plan on spending $600 to $900 including antenna(s), much less if you buy used. If you just will not take the time to study to pass a test (radio clubs provide the training for free or for a small amount of money just to cover their costs) then buy the radio anyway. As I said the F.C.C. has a provision in their rules and regulations allowing anyone to transmit on an amateur radio frequency in an absolute true life and death emergency. But you wouldn’t know much about the radio or the radio frequencies that are optimum at different times of the day and so on. You really need to join a local radio club, soak up knowledge and “get on the air” to make some radio contacts before the day comes when a “radio contact” may mean the difference between signaling for help from afar and slowly dying. All of these transceivers transmit and receive both voice and Morse code. Knowing Morse code is no longer a requirement to obtain any ham license but Morse code has much more distance capability than voice so don’t ignore Morse code. It can actually be fun! One other advantage to these new five watt HF transceivers compared to a 100 watt transceiver that can be turned down to five watts is that they are smaller and weigh less which is important if you have to move locations. Also, on a few radios (both HF radios like these and the VHF radios already discussed turning down the power does not turn down the power drawn during transmit). Ask the person at the store you speak with – he may have to check that specification out by testing the radio as that is rarely mentioned (but should be). Buy an HF transceiver that transmits only on the amateur frequency bands (they come prewired that way and you don’t want to accidentally transmit outside the amateur radio frequency bands as you may suddenly find you’re communicating with an aircraft, a military ship or a classified Department of Defense center! BUT buy a transceiver that receives all frequencies from the bottom of the broadcast band (540 kilohertz) to at least 30 megahertz. This covers all of the shortwave broadcast bands.

Radio Japan, BBC in London, Radio Havana (yes, picking up some bad guys might be very important if they were among those who caused the disaster!) and hundreds of other stations. You might even pick up emergency military and government stations sending vital information back and forth. Not meant for you but you’re not a “bad guy” who caused the mess you’re in so the more you know, the better. This is the only shortwave radio you will have that will work better picking up shortwave stations than the Kaito KA500 hopefully you have on order by now (or ordered three or four just to be safe) and have the aluminum foil ready for “EMP wrapping” (or the trashcan bought! Shortwave broadcast stations broadcast on AM (amplitude modulation) mode so try to buy a radio that operates AM, CW (Morse code) and SSB (single side band). You probably have a radio in your car that receives both AM and FM (frequency modulation). You have no need for FM on any of your radios but if one, or more, receive FM, that’s fine. Above all, keep ALL of your radios tightly double wrapped in aluminum foil at all times with the batteries removed (or in your trashcan). Batteries are sturdy devices with large internal wires so EMP is unlikely to damage them unless you are unlucky enough to be located close to the epicenter of the blast (if it was a nuclear, large dynamite or some other type of blast) then you have other more immediate concerns such as your skin burning, your house is on fire or vaporized and so on. This book or any book is not going to help you if the landing coordinates of the 500 megaton nuclear bomb happens to be your house! But WAY too many people keep their Kaito KA500 unwrapped to listen to BBC London or some other far away station or enjoy local programming on AM or FM. When you “feel” the static in the air for an instant caused by a EMP explosion intensified times one hundred by using the Compton Effect it is too late to wrap your radios! It only take a microsecond to burn out the wires of a billion trillion billion transistors.

As mentioned in the EMP chapter you’ll notice very little unless you wear a pace maker that is required to live, are flying in a airplane or on some other means of transportation in which where you are in not a good place to stop (i.e. five miles along a subway tunnel where it is a long way to walk to even reach stairs doing so in pitch black darkness – most likely the authorities in their wisdom changed to a sophisticated backup lighting system last year in which it is controlled from a central location using millions of transistors along the way tossing the old fashioned lantern cell battery emergency lights – always travel with a flashlight in your pocket of some size – ALWAYS). You may even have your hair stand up on end for a moment like in a comedy movie. Except this is not a comedy. If you are a little bit “techie” (or learn some techie info in the ham radio club you joined or just spend an hour with an experienced ham radio operator and he or she (there are MANY women ham radio operators) will tell you all you need to know then take additional steps such as grounding and/or shorting the antenna input and disconnect all wires leading into the radio (most computers are damaged by other wires leading into them – not the 120 volts powering the computer. The number one culprit is the telephone modem cable or the cable/DSL/satellite cable providing Internet service. Many UPS (uninterruptible power systems) and surge protection units these days include protection for the telephone line and/or the Internet DSL/cable CAT5 (category 5) cable but not one person in ten bothers to hook it up. They “protect” the 120 volts AC (alternating current) powering the computer and think their computer is now safe from nearby lightning strikes and anything else that is not supposed to show up on the power line.