A reader recently wrote:
Hi Dan,Thank you so much for the great content you have put out there about Ham radio. I live in NYC but my parents are in Atlanta and I want to make sure they have everything they need for a disaster. Do you think I should help them connect with a local ham operator? I also plan to get them radios but I wanted to ask if you have any advice basically on how to set them up for safety, knowing they will not be getting licensed or anything like that.
I replied:
I think that it depends on what disaster scenario you want them to be prepared for. When you say that you are “going to get them radios” what do you envision them doing with the radios? And why will they not be getting licenses? Getting a Technician Class license is not rocket science.
Having said that, I’m probably not the best one to give advice about emergency preparedness, as I’m not that well-prepared myself for a serious disaster. You might want to visit ready.gov for a more integrated approach to emergency management.
I’m not really satisfied with my answer, so I’m asking you. What should I have told this person?
Bob K0NR says
Dan,
I think your reply was OK. You asked the right question, “what do you envision them doing with the radios?”. Really that’s “what is the objective?”
I sometimes encounter people that think they can get a radio, never use it but when disaster strikes it, it will save them for sure. Not a good strategy.
John Calnan says
Many municipalities offer free emergency preparedness classes. CERT {Citizens Emergency Response Teams) is 24 hours of classroom and hands-on training, free for the asking. They cover Emergency Communications as well. It gives you valuable skills, and connects you with the local Emergency Mgmnt. folks.
Yohei N8YQX says
Without context, it’s hard to say, but it sounds like this person’s parent isn’t too interested in eComm or technology. They would be best served with a battery powered AM/FM radio, their cell phone, and a large power bank. If you think back to the Northeast blackout of 2003, the cell network kept on working, although it was jam packed. Even if multiple towers fail, major telecoms can deploy portable towers.
If they need a local comm, throw in couple FRS radios with plenty of fresh AA batteries.
I guess, if you want to go overboard, there’s always sat phones…
Walter says
I’ll disagree with your answer. Radio, except for a battery-powered broadcast receiver, is about #27 on the list.
The top three, about equal in importance, are: find your local emergency preparedness group and work with them, build a 72 hour survival kit based on your needs and your skills, and take a first aid course.
In our town, we have emergency coordinators at the block and neighborhood level. They have comms to our volunteer city radio room. In our city, the best thing would be to be trained in one of those roles, using FRS or MURS. But city comms are always secondary to personal safety.
Mike W8MRA says
This isn’t the answer to your question. But just something to ponder.
Would it be advantageous for FEMA and CERT and other emergency coordinators to publicly encourage everybody in disaster-prone areas to have an FRS radio and a pack of Lithium-ion batteries in a drawer?
And when disaster does strike, first responders will be monitoring.
Steve W8SFC says
FRS and GMRS radios are a simple bandaid fix for the problem of what to do when the phone system is out. This is something I see preppers turn to when they do not want to do the work of getting an amateur license. Older people have been conditioned to think that they haven’t got the ability to understand tech by younger people who don’t know how to teach it to people they don’t believe have the capacity to learn. This is a pretense that has mostly come from the tech savvy and an erroneous assumption on their part. It is a matter of teaching in a way that makes the student comfortable with the information assimilation process and requires patience on the part of the teacher.
Two years ago I did not know the first thing about amateur radio and now I have a General license due to the patience of teachers and my own desire to learn. In my sixties now I do not find it impossible to put that teaching to use – at least at a level that makes communications with other amateurs possible, and I freely admit that I have a lot to learn, but I don’t have a mental block in the way of learning about technology and using it. I just wish that people would stop discouraging others from learning and from programming them to think it is impossible for them to understand how tech works and how to use it. I firmly believe anyone can learn enough to obtain the Technician license if they will work at it and they aren’t programmed for defeat beforehand.
That being said, FRS and GMRS are OK for short range communications in simplex but there really isn’t a network of repeaters that would allow people to access emergency response bulletins and information. If all you want to do is use radio as an intercom I suppose these are a solution but without being able to do more than simplex comms, I don’t see these devices as any kind of alternative in a real disaster situation. This person will not be providing his or her parents with a means to get in touch with him or her without them becoming licensed or knowing someone who is and has the equipment and relationship with organized efforts such as we see in ARES and other like associations. FRS just isn’t well developed enough to provide service beyond the range of the radios themselves.
If these people simply do not want to become licensed that is their choice but the only realistic solution for communications is in amateur radio when the regular infrastructure has failed. In this case I think you gave them the right advice, in directing them to ready.gov because that at least will get them knowledge they can use to prepare for the eventuality of a disaster. If they simply want to survive, this is the place to go for information. If they want to be able to respond to the fluid nature of disaster events, I think amateur radio is essential to stay connected to the response network – and to participate in the gathering and dissemination of information to and from the established response networks that exist across the country. This is why the radio communications organizations exists. We are all consumers of information, and if we choose, providers as well.
Mel says
First, a weather alert radio would be nice.
Second, know a ham who can generate messages to send to any number of people to do health and welfare traffic.
Third, keep in touch on a regular basis with your parents.
Forth, learn to handle traffic. [National Traffic System]
Cliff says
I think you did fine with your answer. The only other thing to mention to the writer would be that getting the license (very low cost) would allow them to use the radios and get familiar with them so they know how to use them during an emergency. If they don’t know how to use them, they really aren’t very useful. As we all know, you don’t want to hit the wrong button or turn the wrong dial and not understand what you just changed in a disaster.
Dave New, N8SBE says
Hmm. Interesting that the FCC is now asking for comments on a proposal known as “Tyro” radio, which would be a very basic entry-level license to use the 70 cm band. I can see all the manufacturers/dealers salivating over the potential market for CB-craze-like sales to all those folks that think a handheld 70 cm radio is the answer to all their communications needs. FRS and GMRS not powerful enough? Step up to Tyro 70 cm and REALLY get out.
Geez.
Clive G6TDI says
As others have said there is way more to worry about first than radios, including knowing what to do with a freezer full of food no water power or gas… It’s something that would not have been an issue for some of our parents or for most peoples grand parents.
It’s also fairly pointless buying dry cell powered radios “to sit in a draw” either the batteries in their packet will self discharge, or if in the radios corrode the battery contacts. Either way they will be of less use than a tea pot made of candle grease.
As for tech is only for the young, that’s usually the sign that even the young do not have a clue but think they can ‘blag it’.
Everybody who is capable of living on their own and even quite a few who can’t for one reason or another can usually pick up new things and learn to use them. Admittedly the older you are generally rhe longer it takes to learn radically different things as by the time you are fourty you have usually built your “life tool kit” and are happy to use those tools you are comfortable with. But that does not mean you can not learn new things, even what many regard as to complex things. A friends father who was an accountant untill he retired in his fifties decided to learn about computers, two years later he was fluently programing in assembler on a Sun OS 5 unix box… As he said it was just a matter of making time and getting down to it.
Many of us have forgotten just how long it took us to learn to use a pencil, roller skates, push bike, and later to drive. We almost all have forgotten even learning to use a rotary dial phone or read an analog clock which for various reasons challenge modern teenagers, and for who saying “nine for an outside line” would produce a look on them that they think they have fallen into a mad house.
The point is if they learnt to drive, then they can certainly learn what is required for the technical side of the US Technician grade licence or UK foundation level licence. And if they put in the same effort it took them to learn to use a pencil or play the recorder then CW is going to be on their list of achievements.
At the end of the day it’s not a case of ‘too difficult’ but putting in the effort to get the reward.
Thus the gentlemen should get one or both his parents along to the radio club close to them and just say hello, the chances are they will probably fit in, because most opperators have other hobbies and actually like to talk about them. At the club I go along to they appear very serious about contests, awards and training. But actually they are not as much as you would think, for instance one of the members mucks about with microwaves at one hundred Ghz up, where it’s more precision model making than electronics, several build model railways including their own rolling stock to a level that astounds me, others will happily talk about motor bikes and bringing old scrappers back from the doom of the junk yard. Theres even fish keeping and wine and beer making. The fact I happen to know how to make cheese and charcuterie almost immediatly got me some keen questioners some of whom have since made their own cream cheese to ‘impress er in doors” who is a wizz at jams (jelly) pickles and preserves thus needed ‘to see the old man could still surprise’, and one has also built his own ‘cold smoker’ to do salmon. I joked he’d be making bagels next when he said his wife dident know how to make them I told him why you have to use lye on them, as you do with corn for grits, to avoid ‘share croppers disease’.
Most clubs like the old ‘Womans Institute’ are actually social groups and the ‘official activities’ an excuse to natter about other things that are much more socially interesting and above all fun with a hint of ‘deadly serious rivalry’ in there when it comes to baking etc.
Oh and trust me if the prepers SHTF event happens, they will find knowing how to make cider vinigar and then use that to make both cheese and plastic out of milk and likewise how to make beer wine and distill spirits will be a better survival skill than knowing how to use an HF setup. As for charcuterie like cheese making it’s a way to turn a short life glut into a long term preserver of food a properly dry cured and smoked side of bacon will last you right through from late autumn through to late spring likewise cheese can keep not just for months but even years if you don’t mind it being mature and strong enough to be like Parmesan where a little grated goes a long long way to make your taste buds feel alive. But vinegar and alcohol both have key medicinal uses as do the by products of bear making. Oh and even certain cheeses have medical uses that blue grean veins in Roquefort is a member of the penicillin family and french farms long new of it’s healing properties befor Fleming was even a twinkle in his fathers eye.
No the radio club I’m in do not know the first thing about ‘preping for SHTF’ but honestly they have hobby skills prepers realy realy should know, but largely don’t, one of which is ‘common sense life skills’…