Remember what happened to General George Armstrong Custer? He went out one day and left his Gatling guns back at the fort. He didn’t think he would need them. That fateful decision didn’t work out well for him or the men under his command.
Don’t let that be you.
While Gatling Guns aren’t regulated by Illinois’ gun and magazine ban (don’t give them any ideas), one thing that’s a lot cheaper and more accessible is two-way radio communications.
We’ve covered this in the last couple of issues of GunNews. And we’ve had some good conversations behind the scenes.
“What can a radio do for me?” is a common question. Along with the first question’s close cousin, “Why go to the trouble?”
In any emergency, establishing and maintaining communication should stand as a top priority, as it’s essential for your safety and security. Without effective comms, you can’t work seemlessly with others. You won’t be able to coordinate your objectives (like reunifying your family…) and you’ll risk getting hurt by not having good information with which to make informed decisions. Good communication also ensures coordination among friendlies and allows for providing and summoning assistance.
In a nutshell: knowledge is power during good times and bad. Especially during a local, regional or national emergency.
When (not if) cell phones go down for whatever reason during an emergency, or access to cellular service is restricted to public safety workers, your backup comms plan and equipment will allow you to communicate with others without using smoke signals or drums.
Even in normal times, these radios can monitor local weather watchers and trained weather spotters when storms approach. By listening to their reports, you will know real-time the latest on the exact location of the worst threats. That alone is worth price of admission to the radio fraternity.
If things go sideways, you can learn where and what sort of help is needed. With comms, you can also learn places to avoid because of criminal activity or first responders doing their thing. Comms will help the prepared folks with damage assessment and/or recovery efforts at the neighborhood level too.
Neighborhood use.
With a hand-held radio, you can reach neighbors within a mile or two. That is IF (and that’s a big “if”) you’ve set up a designated frequency amongst your radio network. And those aforementioned neighbors know how to turn on their respective magical talking boxes and change the channel / frequency to the proper place.
If someone in your neighborhood area has erected a higher antenna (even one on the roof-line or slightly above it, for instance), they will be able to reach people several miles away. That could be you or it could be a neighborhood leader with a passion for radios. Either way, height is might when it comes to the role of antenna height in radio transmissions and reception.
They will also allow the neighbors to talk back and forth among vehicles as they venture out seeking needed stuff or helping others. When travelling/evacuating as a group, the vehicles can communicate with one another so they can work together more effectively and safely.
Neighbors can share information on availability of fuel, food, medications and disaster recovery supplies at various stores. That surely beats burning precious fuel driving around searching blindly. Or running into bad guys up to no good.
Along those same lines if the power or credit card readers are down, knowing where to find stores are still open for business will save time and effort. Ditto for gas stations.
For really good friends in the neighborhood on your radio network, you might be able to finagle borrowing power tools or needed supplies to complete emergency repairs. Maybe even a generator.
You loot, we shoot.
Of course, there’s the obvious use of the radios to report on looters or potential looters in the neighborhood.
What frequency?
MURS, or the Multi-Use Radio Service, might be a good band for local comms. No license is required. No test is required. Designate a channel for your network of friends and neighbors. The exact five frequencies can be found at online search engines. We recommend picking a standard sub-audible tone to vastly reduce annoying “interference.” Put your google skills to work for how to program those tones with the radio(s) of your choice. Everyone has to agree on that subaudible tone or you will not be able to communicate with one another as seemlessly as you would like. And without that tone, you’ll get a lot of (highly) annoying static more often than you would like.
City/County use.
Using repeaters, you and your friends can trade information like above only over a much larger geographic area. As in thousands of square miles.
However, this will require a $35 General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) license from the FCC. This 10-year license covers your entire family! And there’s no testing required. You simply apply online at the FCC (start here) and in a few days, the FCC will issue a license.
With that license and a public repeater (or a “private” repeater you have permission to use), you can check on the well-being of your family members for peace of mind – if your fellow family members have a radio, know how to use it and know which channels/repeater the family will use for comms. Yes, there’s some “ifs” there, but proper prior planning prevents poor performance. (C’mon: Write it down and laminate the instructions and put them with the radio if you think your family members might struggle with this, especially in an emergency.)
These tools known as radios can also help moms and dads (and maybe grandparents) coordinate pickup of kiddos from school or elsewhere to help make sure they get home safe. Or to help younger kiddos find mom, dad or other trusted adults.
Imagine how valuable it would be to communicate with your preparedness friends across town or in the next suburb or maybe even in the next county to ask for assistance or to offer help.
Having a way to reach out to friendlies to come help you and/or your family with critical supplies might prove helpful or even priceless.
Example: If during an Islamic terror attack, you can coordinate and communicate with your friends with guns, you can work together to get groceries, fuel, fill prescriptions, and do life’s other essential tasks while with one or more friends who are armed – and who have shot more than 30 rounds in the past five years.
Evacuation coordination.
For those evacuating larger cities (like Chicago), the repeaters can allow users to meet up in order to travel together as there’s safety in numbers. Those retreating from urban chaos can share better routes or places to avoid for whatever reason, along with locations to fuel up and obtain food.
To get the full potential out of these repeater machines, you will need a mobile unit for your car. A walkie-talkie, even the UV-5R, simply doesn’t have the horsepower (wattage) to reach out to the full range of the repeater.
Sure, you can hear most transmissions on an HT at a distance, but others may not be able to make out your transmissions clearly beyond maybe ten or fifteen miles, depending on a number of factors.
Retevis has a nice mobile radio unit, the RT-95 for $125 (current). Why this one? If you “unlock” it (google jailbreaking Retevis RT-95), you can program it to broadcast on pretty much any VHF/UHF frequency. Transmitting on unauthorized bands without a proper license is a violation of FCC rules.
A mobile unit, pushing out 25 watts on a better antenna (vs. 5-10 watts on a hand-held with a marginal antenna) will allow you to get the range you need. And in some cases, that might allow you to communicate sixty plus miles with some of the big repeaters connected to antennas mounted hundreds of feet in the air.
But again, these require a GMRS license to use legally.
The legal disclaimer: We hate to do this, but we’ve already received some comments about “some of this isn’t exactly 100% legal.” It’s kinda like concealed means concealed, folks.
Using these Chinese radios for communications may run afoul of some FCC regs in certain circumstances. Operate responsibly and 99.99999944% of the time you’ll be fine, particularly during emergencies.
Many of these rules are like speed limits. Only in this case the FCC may have only a dozen traffic cops for the whole nation. These enforcement people investigate prolific, malicious idiots interfering with public safety and business band radios. The FCC simply is not interested in Joe Sixpack using his UV-5R on an FRS channel “illegally” because he has a removable antenna on his HT.
Just don’t act recklessly or maliciously by interfering with others’ use of radio frequencies, use crude profanity or act like a jackwagon on air and you’ll be unmolested by Mr. FCC.
The bottom line: Knowledge is power, especially during emergencies. Portable radios help keep you informed.
Ok, Now I am even more confused than normal.
I thought you had to have an actual Ham License to use a Baofeng UV-5R radio
Are you people certain a GMRS will cover a Baofeng UV-5R Radio ?
So what about the Baofeng model 88 that’s more like a child’s walkie talkie form the 1960s
The Baofeng 888s are a great little radio for kids and casual radio work for adults who aren’t very savvy. Good for between a half-mile to maybe 3/4s. They’re so cheap (about $10 ea) that it’s no big deal if kids lose them or misplace them or break ’em. Although I haven’t had any breakages yet.
You don’t need a ham license to use a UV-5R unless you’re transmitting on ham freqs.
They (Baofeng radios, specifically the UV-5R and the 5RM) are imported as Ham radios, but if you open them up, they will transmit on pretty much anything including FRS, MURS, and GMRS. You’ll need a license to use GMRS. MURS is good to go without licensing. And FRS? Well, you should abide by the power limits set by the FCC.
I have the uv5r radios. Love them and how you can program them for anything. Looks like my friends and I aren’t the only ones using MURS freqs..
To answer Israel ‘s question… they are officially ham radios but can be modified to transmit & receive universally. To remain legal you are supposed tohave the appropriate license gor the freqs you are transmitting upon.
Thank you. Saw the story in GunNews and bought some stupid cheap Baofang radios. Grandkids love em. Like 6 for $60. They actually work really well. Half mile easy, and we let them free range at park next door with them. I made little radio lovers out of them!
Looks like grandpa needs to get some adult radios. Thanks for links to package deals. I never would have thought to look for those.
My kids love them too. And like you, I let them free range in the neighborhood using the radio as a “leash” of sorts. Plus they think they look cool with a shoulder mic / speaker. They think it makes them look like cops. So long as they carry it, I don’t care. And even with some “hills” in the park next door, signal coverage is outstanding to the furthest reaches of the park and then some with the other end inside our home.