By Taboracek (taboracek@seznam.cz)
Most of us consider a two-way radio to be a part of our survival gear, either for communication with the survival buddies or to summon help. There are tons of options on the market, ranging from the blister pack radios, over the amateur rigs up to the military surplus gear. I’ll try to explain what are the pros and cons of these options as well as the technical details, for example how the “privacy codes” work.
First of all, vast majority of the radios on the market, doesn’t provide any level of encryption, so bear in mind, that anyone can listen to you chatter. The privacy codes on many of the radios are only for convenience purposes, so that you don’t have to listen to all of the traffic on the specific channel. Basically the radio will receive only when a correct privacy code is set on transmitting station. This is realized by an inaudible tone (or digital code) transmitted alongside your spoken message. This is called CTCSS and it’s digital variant is DCS. This is good to know for compatibility, so that if you buy different brand radios, both can do CTCSS or DCS, you’re good to use the privacy codes between the two. The good news is that most of the radios on the market can do one or both of these technologies, but question remains if it is wise to use these in case of disaster.
The commercially available radios are usually covering the CB band (27 MHz), VHF band (136-172MHz) and UHF band (406-480 MHz). For example the American GMRS/FRS service is being operated around 470MHz, while it’s European counterpart PMR is on 446MHz. Each of the bands has it’s advantages and disadvantages. The CB band is usually quite good on long distances, while in an urban areas the UHF might be better due to it’s ability to ricochet. The sole fact that the radios can operate on the whole band, or multitude of bands, doesn’t mean that it’s legal to do so. Some parts of the bands are reserved for ham usage, some for PD etc. However, it’s interesting to have a radio, that can listen to the police broadcasts as well as being used for GMRS.
In my opinion the radios should be reliable, rugged, waterproof and versatile. As an added benefit I would consider that it’s being loaded by AA batteries, so rechargables can be used and is running on 12V so it can be wired to car batteries. There are several options, but only few is meeting all the requirements.
For my personal usage, I’ve ruled out the CB radios, since they are quite bulky and I wasn’t able to get a sufficiently rugged radio. The distance isn’t my priority, and if so, I can achieve that with my ham radio, which can operate on on the CB band. Also all of my radios can speak to each other and most of them on just one band. This eliminates the need for multiple antennas. My personal favorite is the UHF band, since I’m living in the urban area, but out in the wild, the UHF performs well as long a line of sight is established. If my property or intended place of use would be a hilly terrain, I’d probably pick the VHF radios instead. But then again, my UHF radios performed just fine in one of the French skiing resorts on a trip with my family. It is kind of tricky to pick a band for your use, I’ve picked UHF since I can configure my radios to work as PMR radios, since these are very popular in my country, and it’s europa wide universal. Similar case would be the GMRS/FRS in US, considering the number of radios sold.
On the low budget there are the blister packs. These are usually quite a low quality, with exception of some Intek and Motorola pieces. Specifically some of the Motorola radios has quite a durability and waterproofing. Unless you’re in a desperate need of two way radios and have no money I wouldn’t recommend these.
Somewhere mid way up the price ladder are ham rigs. There is a ton of them around, and quite a few can be found on eBay. Over the years I had quite a lot of them, but recently I’ve acquired Yaesu FT-817. This is an all band amateur rig, that can be expanded for operation out of the ham bands, and it now goes from some 500kHz to 56MHz, then the VHF and UHF bands, plus it can receive the air traffic control. The FT-817 comes with a battery pack, so it can be operated portable, as well it’s input voltages ranges from some 9-15V as far as I know. The only drawback is that it has low power output, but for local communication it’s sufficient. The ham radios are usually quite complicated to operate, so it’s imperative to know what the features are and what they do. Anyway, having a licensed ham radio operator in your pack is in my opinion advisable.
I’m a very big fan of Motorola business/professional series radios. They can withstand harsh torture, there is a variety of accessories and the cheap models are very easy to operate. For some the real showstopper on these is that the Motorola radios are in most cases computer programmed, which isn’t quite practical for field usage. Another disadvantage is that they use battery packs and can’t be fitted with AA batteries. But if you’re looking primarily on the team communications, they’re great pick. The GP series starts at some 100$ used on eBay and will last forever. The UHF models can be programed to use the GMRS/FRS and European PMR frequencies. The VHF models can then cover for example the marine radio bands.
For the military surplus radio gear, I wouldn’t recommend that at all. The reason for this is that there isn’t many of current military radios available for the public. Another issue is that since it’s military gear there isn’t much accessories available and service will also be an issue. Also in my country the radios available are in most cases old pieces from the cold war era, runs odd batteries and their versatility is thus limited. Most of these are not in the traditional walkie-talkie form factor, rather a man packs, which in a crisis situation will definitely be a disadvantage.
As to what to pick from the variety of choices. My recommendation is to pick one band and stick with it. This will allow you to cheaply replace just a few radios in your collection still making sure that you can talk with each other. As an addition I’d recommend to have some multiband ham radio, such as the FT-817 or similar, that would allow you to listen what is around and eventually speak with other parties on different bands than your primary radios operate
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{ 10 comments }
We need more guest posts like this. Knowledgable people that can give us real information. My hats off to Taboracek and to M.D. for having him.
This is a good article.
I couldn't afford the nicer models so I went with Motorola blister pack radios. I have one for each member of my family as well as each one of my neighbors. For short-range communication they do just fine.
For long range communications i'm looking at buying the best ham radio I can afford that has the widest spectrum available. I'd like to study a little more before I make that purchase though, the technology is a bit overwhelming. If SHTF before that happens, I know someone about a mile from here that sells ham equipment that I'm on good terms with.
For information/recon, I have two police scanners and two AM/FM/NOAA/SW radios.
All gear will run on AA batteries but I need to find a way to run the various devices off my 12v system. Each have different sized connectors and different voltages. Any good ideas? I'd hate to waste power by using an inverter just to use the wall plug to convert it back to DC.
Also a SHTF Ham radio primer would be nice if anybody out there has the time ;o)
I can't say I agree with dismissing CB radios out of hand. In my hilly rural area they were the only real option for me plus they are common so will keep you better connected to the community around you that you will more than likely need to depend on. I imagine most everyone will have CB's after a while in a collapse but few will have Ham or SW radios.
I tried Motorola and Midway blister packs and frankly the range on all of them sucked. Even the upper level ones that advertised 20+ mile range.
Finally I went with Panasonic and radio shack hand held 40 channel CB's with a converted mobil CB as a base. Now all of them can run on 110, rechargeable battery packs, AA batteries or 12 volt car batteries.
As for security well if it is really needed then the "enemies" you would need the security from would more than likely be able to listen in on anything I could afford to purchase anyway.
Just my opinion but CB radios with groundless fiberglass boat antennas are a portable, easily powered wonder.
Got to say I'm in the Navy and we have used the Motorola blister pack radios on the water front and they held up well (if a sailor cant destroy it it cant be destroyed) and the range was very good. Over all I don't have any real complaints as far as inexpensive hand held limited frequency radios go.
Good article and info.
Like everything else to do with prepping, what you need depends on where you are/will be. For rural Nebraska, CB radios are common. I also picked up 4 pair of Midland GRMS/FRS radios for the family. We test those out to about two miles with good results. My brother and I plan on getting HAM radios later this year, time permitting.
I also recently purchased a Grundig G6 Aviator for general use and the B.O.B.
AR15.com has an excellent ham radio primer called HAM RADIO 101. It's under the outdoors section then ham radio. I learned alot from it. Getting into ham radio doesn't have to be expensive. I just bought a used ICOM T2H 2 meter handheld for $65 shipped. HTH
Anon @ 5:24, that's a great link. It answered both of my questions.
Many thanks Taboracek. You cleared up some misconceptions I had regarding the various bands.
Learning whilst saving time, effort, and cash rocks.
2Suburban Survivalist: surely it's wise to pick a band that is already common in your area. I still have a CB radio, but for comms with rest of the pack I use UHF.
2 everyone else : thanks
in order to be complete covered in an emergency, one needs to have several working radio systems covering the various easy to get to radio frequencues… like it or not, cb is probbley the most used, then murs and up and comming family radio,… you are bouned to find some one on these radio frequiencys,…. ham radio ,in an emergency is useualy tied up in ” legal stuff, like , whats ur call, or your talking out of turn, leave these bands for the radio cops and guys that are on emergency nets… sure, if you got a reciever, do listen in,…but the other mentioned bands will be most usefull for local communications …i would check even the old 49 mhz walkie talkie frequencies… you never know where you might here signals …
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