Comms in SHTF or unrest or whatever

[nick84]

Handheld radios, specifically. What are you guys using these days?

I wouldn't necessarily put myself in the bucket of thinking that the big one is going down sometime soon, but as far as reasonable prepping goes it's a empty spot in my plans at the moment, which I'm looking to rectify.

I used to be pretty savvy with comms, back when I was carrying a 117 or a 152 (They still using those?). So I'm not really looking for lessons on frequency or propagation, just curious what systems out there on the market people are picking up. Preferences are towards range and capability while still being fairly simple to operate. Some sort of security capability would be a huge plus as well.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[turnburglar]

Who are you trying to talk to?



Sounds like a really dumb question, but it will answer your question. Half the reason comms are effective in the military is because of who is on the other side, doing actionable things with your information. In the civilian space comms work COMPLETELY differently. Also there is very little to nothing in the way of security for civilian comms.

You really need to get your HAM license. You don't think you do, but you do. With that you can run more than straight simplex. Also with your HAM license you can get into DMR which has a lot of the features you are looking for.

For me and my friends we just run Baofengs on GMRS or MURs frequencies. For under $100; the UV5R is the standard, but Im special so I picked up some UV9r+'s. For analog another good radio to look into is the Raddioditty GA510. When you start spending more than $100 its worth it to buy a DMR radio; which will be an overly complicated paper weight without other friends that use a DMR radio.

[The_War_Wagon]

For me and my friends we just run Baofengs on GMRS or MURs frequencies. For under $100; the UV5R is the standard, but Im special so I picked up some UV9r+'s.

After the poop impacts the rotating oscillator, ^^^THIS is largely what you'll actually encounter.

[nick84]

Who are you trying to talk to?

Suppose I should have specified, but this is what I was looking for. Thanks for the info.

You really need to get your HAM license. You don't think you do, but you do. With that you can run more than straight simplex. Also with your HAM license you can get into DMR which has a lot of the features you are looking for.

For me and my friends we just run Baofengs on GMRS or MURs frequencies. For under $100; the UV5R is the standard, but Im special so I picked up some UV9r+'s. For analog another good radio to look into is the Raddioditty GA510. When you start spending more than $100 its worth it to buy a DMR radio; which will be an overly complicated paper weight without other friends that use a DMR radio.

[Arik]

I thought about it a while ago but logically it makes no sense in my case. None of my friends live close enough to matter. A half hour drive on a normal day is going to be a lot longer (if at all possible) in a shtf day. Besides they all have their own extended families to worry about and none live remotely close. We all live in this triangle where everyone is about half hour away from each other. I made it perfectly clear that everyone is welcome to come over, just bring what you can with you. However I would be highly surprised if even one came over

Sent from my moto z4 using Tapatalk

[ST911]

OP- This is isn't a "use the search button", but I do think you'd find a lot of info you're looking for by checking out search terms HAM, Baofeng, amateur radio, etc. We've kicked around a lot of radio stuff, as well as licensing issues.

[okie]

So as far as HTs go, range is almost always limited to line of sight. Simplex (radio to radio) is going to max out at about two miles in flatland, but could potentially be tens of miles or even more if both parties can gain line of sight through elevation. Every once in a while there's something called tropospheric ducting where you can get over the horizon propagation, but it's not reliable by any means. So in reality, you're looking at about a mile of reliable signal that you can count on most of the time. VHF is better at overcoming buildings and topography, but it's still not going to go over the horizon like HF can. You'll just be more likely to reach someone if you're down in a depression or in a bunch of thick trees or something, provided they're in range to begin with.

In the HT world, increasing power doesn't really help much. Like going from five watts to eight isn't likely to help much if at all. Power really only helps when you have a large enough antenna to increase range appreciably, and the next step up from five watts is about 50 or so, which places you in base station territory. What does dramatically help HTs is a better antenna placed higher. With a portable field antenna you can increase range up to maybe five miles or so. Like for example, I have a ladder antenna in the peak of my attic that's about 20 feet off the ground, and I can get about 2.5 (intermittently up to five) miles from the house with an external antenna on the car. If the other party had a ladder antenna placed higher, too, then probably five miles wouldn't be out of the question.

As far as security, your only legal option is to get an itinerant business license and use old police radios with encryption. Just be aware of what you're getting yourself into, because they're expensive and difficult to program. And they don't prevent people from triangulating on your position. The best security is simply to only transmit while moving, and be careful what you say. One thing you can do is program a "secure" channel by using a different receive and transmit frequency. And while it's technically not legal, you could do it on an unusual portion of the band where you're not likely to have people listening. The majority of radios are going to be FRS, MURS, GMRS, business, and public safety. If you're in the suburbs, the business band will likely be completely unmonitored. Just make sure you're not interfering with air traffic or anything like that. And just save the channel for emergency use only and use other channels to practice with.

As far as which HTs to get, the UV5R is always popular. They work most of the time, and they're cheap enough to outfit your own private army. The next step up would be something like the Yaesu FT65R. Now the thing with the Yaesus is that they come locked so as not to transmit outside the amateur band, meaning you can't use them on MURS, FRS/GMRS, etc. However, you can unlock them extremely easily simply by entering the code. That's the only difference between the ones we get here and the ones they ship to Europe, ours were locked at the factory before they got boxed up, and you unlock them just as easily. You'll get HAMs telling you you're stupid, it's illegal, you'll brick your radio, blah blah blah, but it's all complete bullshit. Yes, technically it's illegal, but literally no one besides a bunch of overgrown hall monitors cares. The Baofengs can transmit on those frequencies, and HAMs use those all the time, even if they might not like to admit it.

As far as what to transmit on, MURS is very attractive. It's VHF, it's license free, and two of the channels are still wideband, which is going to give you the best range.

[Boy Scout]

The Motorola DTR series radios are 900mhz digital UHF, and have a frequency hopping feature that “kind of” encrypts the traffic. They are not cheap, but usage is free as it’s a business band radio. They are limited to one watt and 900mhz which doesn’t travel distance well, and the traffic can be “tin canny,” but they would be a good solution for close team operations with a modicum of security. The newer DTR 600 and 700 models are supposed to have a modulator that clears up the signal, but I’ve not used them. I had older versions and they were lacking in the clarity that I wanted.

[okie]

The Motorola DTR series radios are 900mhz digital UHF, and have a frequency hopping feature that “kind of” encrypts the traffic. They are not cheap, but usage is free as it’s a business band radio. They are limited to one watt and 900mhz which doesn’t travel distance well, and the traffic can be “tin canny,” but they would be a good solution for close team operations with a modicum of security. The newer DTR 600 and 700 models are supposed to have a modulator that clears up the signal, but I’ve not used them. I had older versions and they were lacking in the clarity that I wanted.

The business band isn't free, but it's either 915 or 923 that is. The neat thing is you can actually have repeaters. If I were going to mess around with that frequency though I would probably do either LoRa or Gotenna. They don't need as much signal to work. They also have full 256 bit encryption, and I would highly doubt that anyone is going to notice them or be able to track one very easily since the duration of transmissions would be very, very short. They also all work as repeaters, so if you had a group of people whoever was doing the tracking wouldn't know where the signal actually originated from. Not saying it couldn't be done, but I think it would take some skill and special equipment.

[mike_f]

The Motorola DTR series radios are 900mhz digital UHF, and have a frequency hopping feature that “kind of” encrypts the traffic. They are not cheap, but usage is free as it’s a business band radio. They are limited to one watt and 900mhz which doesn’t travel distance well, and the traffic can be “tin canny,” but they would be a good solution for close team operations with a modicum of security. The newer DTR 600 and 700 models are supposed to have a modulator that clears up the signal, but I’ve not used them. I had older versions and they were lacking in the clarity that I wanted.

I recently went this route after finding some used DTR410's on ebay listed for $86 delivered. Beats the $200-$300 they cost new. Don't know or have any connection with the seller, but he appears to be selling a bunch of them. You might contact the ebay seller to see if he will sell at a lower price if you by multiples (he did for me).

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Motorola-DT...53.m2749.l2649

They come with a charger & belt clip/holster, The batteries on the 4 radios I bought are dated between 2016 - 2018. I've run them through a couple of charge use cycles and they appear to be working properly. Spare Motorola-brand batteries seem to be readily available, but cost about $40.

I have a ham license, but no one else in my family will get licensed. I bought these to legally use them with my family before SHTF or whatever. They're not radio-people, and don't have any experience using anything other than a cellphone. The DTR's are easy to use once you get them programmed (free Motorola software), but my family will need experience with the radios before an emergency.

The DTR410's work in our hilly, heavy wooded neighborhood out to about a mile. Of course the terrain helps/hinders you depending on the line of sight. I got them primarily to keep in contact with my family members in/near the house if we're doing something in the property, helping neighbors, etc., if everything else is down.