Prepper Comms

[searcher]

Came across this by accident and thought it was worth sharing. Maybe some of our resident hams will chime in.

Prepper Comms Series -- A PRIMER​

Apr 10, 2026
This video is a primer to the upcoming 'Prepper Comms Series' of videos, designed to describe the concentric rings of communications priorities, with examples.
You know grid-down communications is important, but just feel overwhelmed by all the information and choices, and it's all unfamiliar to you.
Then this series is for you and others in your family/group who are on the same journey.


21:11

 

[pmbug]

Old school mail delivery system for when there is no power:

Spoiler

 

[searcher]

Some other threads to check out.

Building a Solar Powered Ham Radio Station

Meshtastic (Radio Coms)

Handheld ham radio law changing.

Shortwave Listening (SWL)

 

[searcher]

Prepper Comms Video 2 Fundamentals and RF Introduction​

 

[searcher]

Prepper Comms VIdeo 3 Get My Comms Up HELP​

Apr 24, 2026
A grid-down event is one week away (let's say). What do you do?
JJS addresses one of the most common needs experienced in the prepper community. Someone walks up with a radio they bought last year (most often a Baofeng UV-5R) and they haven't touched it since.
Q: "What do I do with this?"
Q: "How do I know what frequencies to put in it?"
Q: "How do I program it?"
You'll learn the top three things you should be doing now to prepare for that grid-down event "next week."
You'll also learn what FREE software to get, what cables and other accessories you need, options that will help improve your signal and reach, and you'll learn where to get the frequencies in your area, and how to program those into your radio. It's easier than you might think!
Resources & links are below the vid on youtube.

Prepper Comms VIdeo 3 Get My Comms Up HELP

 

[Casey Jones]

I hear this constantly...Greg Hunter and others, hawking satphones, etc.

WHY is this going to be so CRITICAL? Are we going to need to chitchat when TSFTF?

Family, yeah. Except in a true crisis, there is little you can do. Family far away, is going to have to stay there, until travel is possible/safe. If it ever-again is.

In another part of town...so, you get the spousal unit, or the offspring, on satphone. What, so you can hear each other DIE? You can't help them in that moment - you're hunkered down. They can't help you. They need to get to whatever hidey-hole you've planned - and yammering about it won't help.

A Mad Max EOTWAWKI truck going out to retrieve, in the midst of food riots or alien uprising (Somalia, not intergalactic)...silly. You advertise you have a tough truck with capabilities. Morons with 65 IQs want it.

Good luck with that, as they say.

What's needed is a pre-arranged PLAN. How to get to where everyone needs to be. How to communicate, after the batteries are dead and the solar panels stolen or destroyed by rock-throwers. Obviously a nine-year-old girl is not going to cross the city. Less obvious but as true, Mommy isn't going to drive an SUV across the area to the government skeul, there and back, either.

To the question at hand, runners, trusted intermediates, are the answer. Not so much the gee-whiz junk.

 

[Bottom Feeder]

Peoples watch too much TV and they have this 'I'm gonna survive' mindset and have no idea what it's gonna be like when the shooting is over. I'm close enough to Seattle to know I ain't gonna survive a nuke war.

 

[Bushpilot]

Nor would I want to survive….,

 

[Casey Jones]

Peoples watch too much TV and they have this 'I'm gonna survive' mindset and have no idea what it's gonna be like when the shooting is over. I'm close enough to Seattle to know I ain't gonna survive a nuke war.

One thing we know from just about EVERY catastrophe, is that survival is 9/10ths chance.

People survive airline crashes in weird ways - like that flight attendant launched out of the Air Canada crash, strapped into her seat. Like one of the Marconi telegraphers on the Titanic - who stayed at his post until LONG after the last lifeboat left, but caught an upside-down collapsible life-raft as the top decks were going under.

You just never know.

Now, as to whether survival will be worth it or not...that's another issue.

And believe me, I think about that. Especially since in the last three years, movement has gotten so much harder. Back a decade ago, I could conceive of me doing a Euell Gibbons impersonation as a hunter-gatherer hermit-author. Now just to get up off the ground, if I'm there to pick something up, I have to have something to grab onto.

Ah, well. Life's a bitch, and then you die.

 

[searcher]

Prepper Comms VIdeo 4 VHF UHF Antenna Performance