RADIO COMMS

[Lightspeed]

Hi NR,

Thanks for your supportive words. Ia m happy to contribute as in doing so it helps me clrify my own thoughts. Also, it is useless me having equipment and knowledge if there is no one else out there to communicate with. I need to know what others want so that i can make sure my comms will interface with them. It is in my interest to help all genuine potential network participants to set up as effectively as possible. This is my contributiion if you like. On other subjects i lurk in the background collecting ideas and experience from others.

There is no reason to get hung up on the idea of having one radio that does everything. As per previous posts, such machines do exist but you'll be paying over GBP 600 for somthing that can be emulated by two separate units for around GBP 250..... hey you can have two brand new CB multibands and a pair of the new UV-5rs and still have a hundred quid left over. In this case cheap doesn't mean rubbish... it just means more for your money.

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Timelord

Funny I was thinking the same thing while walking this evening. There is a great little Albrect handheld Multimode CB on the market that looks like a great machine. It costs arround two hundred quid. I thik it is 5w power which might mean that an RF amplifier would be desirable at times. Such amplifiers cost around GBP 100.

The idea of using extra power for coms is worth considering some more. Electrical power will a precious rescource PSHTF, I am not sure that we'd want to be using up valuable Amp Hours on comms unless it is a dire emergency. Also on a Post SHTF world it can be expected that ambient radio noise polution would reduce significantly, this would allow low power equipment to perform a lot more effectively. Today, the main reason for turning up transmission power on groundwave communications is simply to overcome the mainly man made background noise.

So what I am proposing is that low power is desireable and will probably be completely effective post SHTF, but it will also be a wise precaution to have extra power and power supply to drive that power for emergencies.