Which Radio / Comms Gear

[River Song]

Assuming the landline network has gone; the mobile / cellphone network has been restricted to those organisations Gold/Silver/Bronze who have been issued with the standby SIM cards; what means of communication would you suggest for both a homebase and those out and about

[bigpaul]

carrier pigeon

[Metroyeti]

Jonas and lightspeed are the resident comms experts

[NorthernRaider]

Theres a huge great thread about this in the comms section and an excellent draft standard criteria for preeper comms system written by Lightspeed.

[Skean Dhude]

There are a few articleson the main site around comms. It is a complex subject and nowhere near finished yet.

[Franc]

Read through this thread.
http://forum.survivaluk.net/showthread.php?tid=3189

[Jonas]

(9 June 2013, 17:33)River Song Wrote: Assuming the landline network has gone; the mobile / cellphone network has been restricted to those organisations Gold/Silver/Bronze who have been issued with the standby SIM cards; what means of communication would you suggest for both a homebase and those out and about

It really depends on who you want to communicate with and the distances involved. For "home base", a good CB (preferably with single side-band capability), a means to power it, and a good antenna may solve your problem for communications within the radius of a few miles or so depending on atmospheric conditions.

Anything much more than that will require high-frequency single side-band amateur equipment, a license, and the knowledge of how to use it properly. I recommend that you go to http://rsgb.org/main/clubs-and-education/#clubs and find the club nearest you.

As an alternative, a good single side-band capable battery-powered portable short wave receiver with a jack for an external antenna will allow you to listen in to conversations world-wide.

"Out and about" is a bit different. Car-mounted radios (both CB and SW) are available and useful. Hand-held CB radios aren't very effective except at very short distances, and hand-held short-wave radios in the 2-meter to 75 centimeter bands aren't much better without the use of repeater infrastructure which may or may not work in a disaster.

If you have any questions, please PM me, although you will get almost all of your questions answered just by attending a meeting of your local ham club.

[River Song]

cheers

I might sound like a loompah but I really don't have the time to develop Ham skills
or get a licence. In a case of TU, I don't really mind being illegal

If radio really is the answer then I guess I need to look at some form of transceiver.

I'm also wondering whether satellite phones would work after TU or whether they would go down
just like the normal cellphone network.

[Lightspeed]

(11 June 2013, 07:12)River Song Wrote: cheers

I might sound like a loompah but I really don't have the time to develop Ham skills
or get a licence. In a case of TU, I don't really mind being illegal

If radio really is the answer then I guess I need to look at some form of transceiver.

I'm also wondering whether satellite phones would work after TU or whether they would go down
just like the normal cellphone network.

Hi River Song,

Satelite coms generally have gov controlled access, so don't rely on them to be available to you in a post SHTF world.

Its legal to own ham radio transceivers and l to use them for listening to amateur communications. Its just transmitting with these machines that requires a license.

Who do you want to be able to reach in a grid down world? and more importantly how far away from you and what sort of terrain lies between you? What budget do you have for coms?

The snag is that ham radio gear is a bit confusing to use at first and is most understandable with a bit of face to face instruction. At very least get a copy of the RSGB publication "Foundation Now" by Alan Betts, this contains all you need to know for basic operation of ham equipment.

LS

[River Song]

LS

Satcom has no government controlled access. I can go out and buy a satphone on one of three commercial networks today.
Trouble is we are talking around £500-£800 for the phone and around £2 per minute call charges. But at least they are not reliant on earth bound cellphone/mobile network.

I know from my own work that gold/silver/ and possibly bronze is going to be given or already have special sim cards and if the SHTF then only those units with special sim cards will be able to operate. Those are present plans.

I see no plans for the satellite networks but I could be wrong.

Ham Radio could be useful. I have family around 150 miles away. I am in East Anglia and they are in Surrey with London in between !!

I personally reckon it might be easier to run the satphones although the radio waves are not controllable.

Long Term? In the rebuilding phase? I had considered packet-radio as a precursor to a new data network


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