{"id":4796,"date":"2013-02-02T15:07:20","date_gmt":"2013-02-02T04:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/?p=4796"},"modified":"2013-02-01T15:18:43","modified_gmt":"2013-02-01T04:18:43","slug":"ham-radio-and-shortwave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/2013\/02\/ham-radio-and-shortwave-4796.html","title":{"rendered":"Ham Radio is on the only post-SHTF communication option"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the presumption that throughout your region all electricity is off, how will people\u00a0communicate?<\/p>\n

Cell towers need electricity
\nLand lines might not need electricity at home if \u00a0they are the non-cordless, but the phone system itself needs\u00a0electricity
\nTV and radio need electricity to broadcast
\nPolice, military and emergency services depend on electricity to communicate<\/p>\n

For local\u00a0communications\u00a0you have the options of walkie-talkies and CB radios, but they are only good for a few miles. That’s great for contacting local friends and relatives, and well-worth having, but won’t help you learn what is going on elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Amateur radio (aka HAM radio) is the only remaining method for long-distance communications. So, in\u00a0anticipation\u00a0of needing this, your choices are:<\/p>\n

1) Get a license and gear
\n2) Get a license and use someone else’s occasionally
\n3) Get to know those who have the gear<\/p>\n

Where all these choices meet is joining a local enthusiast’s society. At the very least you should be able to get to know the folk with the right gear, and know where they are located.<\/p>\n

The best rigs require electricity, so you would need some sort of large battery backup system to run it. Otherwise smaller systems are handheld and battery operated (pic below), and there also setups you can run from a vehicle.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

This from Prepper Resources<\/a>:<\/p>\n

You may be thinking that you won\u2019t need a license if T-SHTF, and that you\u2019ll just buy a Ham radio and use it when the time comes.\u00a0 You can do that but like other survival skills you need to practice in order to be proficient.\u00a0 You will need experience in the use of the radio, building antennas, Morse Code and fine tuning of frequencies.\u00a0 By\u00a0 getting an Amateur Radio License<\/a>\u00a0you can also network with other Hams and become familiar with \u201cBest practices\u201d in Ham operation.\u00a0 Hams are well versed in making home made antennas that work better then commercial antennas and even building radios.\u00a0 These are skills that can be learned but it does take time.<\/p>\n
A Ham radio operator can function effectively without the use of any other equipment, even though operators do frequently use repeaters on a day to day basis.\u00a0 Another great aspect of Ham radio is this: you can do more then use voice communication.\u00a0\u00a0Morse Code\u00a0is a common form of communication in Ham radio.\u00a0 Also operators commonly utilize \u201cpacket radio\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Packet radio\u00a0allows transmission of photos, video, and text.\u00a0 The text was the predecessor to email.\u00a0 Yes indeed, Ham radio operators were using email before you were and all these forms of communications are available with just a radio.<\/p>\n
Ham radios are versatile and can be base stations located in your home with high output power, mobile mounted in a vehicle with moderate output power, or portable small handheld radios with low power output that can be carried anywhere.<\/p>\n
After T-SHTF communication will be difficult but needed. \u00a0Land lines, cell phones, email, instant messaging, and the internet will be lost but Ham Radio will still be there.\u00a0 When natural disasters like Katrina or Sandy strike, Ham Radio is there to allow emergency personnel to communicate because the normal communications channels are lost. \u00a0When the government can\u2019t communicate with each other during disaster, who do they call for help?\u00a0 Amateur radio operators, because they know amateur radio is there and works when all other forms of communications fail.\u00a0 That leads me to believe that after T-SHTF, Ham Radio will be the only form of communication available.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Finally, make sure you have a battery-operated radio that can receive shortwave – certainly someone, somewhere will be transmitting over those frequencies, and they can travel around the globe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the presumption that throughout your region all electricity is off, how will people\u00a0communicate?
\nCell towers need electricity
\nLand lines might not need electricity at home if \u00a0they are the non-cordless, but the phone system itself needs\u00a0electricity
\nTV and radio need electricity to broadcast
\nPolice, military and emergency services depend on electricity to communicate
\nFor local\u00a0communications\u00a0you have the options of walkie-talkies and CB radios, but they are only good for a few miles. That’s great for contacting local friends and relatives, and well-worth having, but won’t help you learn what is going on elsewhere.
\nAmateur radio (aka HAM radio) is the only remaining method for long-distance communications. So, in\u00a0anticipation\u00a0of needing this, your choices are:
\n1) Get a license and gear
\n2) Get a license and use someone else’s occasionally
\n3) Get to know those who have the gear
\nWhere all these choices meet is joining a local enthusiast’s society. At the very least you should be able to get to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-survivalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4796"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4801,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4796\/revisions\/4801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}