It’s not just Police and government who use radio systems for their day to day operations or mission critical communications during a event or disaster. But many, and I means many regular folks like you and I use radio daily. With proper planning and training you would be surprised at just how essential radio can be to the doomsday prepper or SHTF survivalist. Those who have communications during and in the days and weeks after a massive incident or disaster are people who will likely have a far greater chance at survival than others. Why is that? It’s simple, while the rest of the world is disconnected and disorganized, doomsday survivalists won’t be disconnected at all. They will have access to information explaining their situation so that they can take the necessary steps to secure themselves and their families. Furthermore they will have the ability to employ counter surveillance tactics so they can stay a step above the rest of us.
Two way radio is essential, it’s as important as a first aid kit and water purification. Those with radio can communicate, coordinate and survive! Those without them will be lost and scattered not knowing key elements in surviving whatever situation they are thrown into.
In addition to keeping in contact with your group, radio will offer access to vital information broadcast on the EAS and by ham radio operators, military, urban search & rescue, aviation and marine and more. Without an FCC license all civilians have immediate access to a ton of spectrum (frequencies) for general and emergency communications. In addition the government will broadcast crucial information after a disaster telling us what the situation is. News is broadcast over the air, Aircraft will always use radio to coordinate activities. The cellular grid will either be so congested or completely offline in areas that you won’t be able to use a cellphone or data for days to weeks to even months or years depending on the level of the catastrophe. Radio will be the ONLY dependable lifeline for most living in the aftermath.
Citizens Band will be a great tool for gathering information over long distances when skip is in. It could be useful locally as well but it isn’t great for personal use like FRS/GMRS or MURS will be. However because CB can be operated in AM/FM and SSB it will be a necessary asset after all hell has broken loose. My personal thought is that CB Radio would be a great base radio for short to medium range communications with other camps or communities. It’s not secure though, anyone can hear you and its pretty easy to track so it’s not a form of radio you will use for tactical communications. That level of radio is best left to UHF/VHF communications commonly operated on FRS, GMRS, MURS and some itinerant frequencies used by business users. Marine VHF could even be used on land after something major also. The main reason FRS/GMRS and MURS would be beneficial for tactical use is that it’s easier (with software) to add voice inversion which can provide a little bit of radio security when you want to be private. But it’s not a dependable long range option. FRS/GMRS legally operate at 2 watts but in the event of lets say nuclear war, no one is going to fine you for operating at 5 watts portable and 50+ watts on a mobile or base. FRS or Family radio service is 22 UHF (462/467 MHz) channels which can be used license free for personal or family use. MURS is 5 VHF frequencies ruled the same way, free for personal use at 2 watts. These are intended to be used within close proximality by a family or group. Commonly these are used by private security and other business users who don’t want to buy an FCC license. In the days after a major emergency or incident it will be heavily utilized by militia’s, search & rescue and group coordination fighting to survive.
For long range and high powered communications after the incident Ham (Amateur) Radio will be used by licensed (and probably some unlicensed) people for everything from coordination to rescue to counter radio surveillance to the reception of news or other vital information regarding whatever they are surviving. These are frequencies which will be monitored by military and federal disaster relief nationwide and beyond. Amateur radio does require the user be FCC licensed to operate and they system is quite complex with modes and equipment to transmit, however for simple receive smaller low power radios can be found online for just a few hundred dollars and the only antenna you need is a long piece of wire stretched between two objects between 6 to 20 feet above the ground. This is pretty much the same as shortwave radio which in my opinion will be a crucial radio for the after disaster days.
What’s good about shortwave radio is that you can hear worldwide radio broadcasts that could be beneficial in the aftermath of something big. If for example the USA got nuked and the country was in total EMP darkness, you could use a shortwave radio to tune in the BBC and obtain vital information (Providing your radio works). A quick search on amazon will kick back several survival radios that offer hand crank and solar charging options when the power grid is unavailable.
Midland makes a very nice FRS/GMRS, AM/FM radio with Weather band and hand crank emergency charging which would be the ideal survival radio. Its the Midland base camp and it’s available on amazon for $99 dollars. The radio is selling very very fast currently. Kaito radio is also a fantastic survival radio with solar and hand crank charging. Any FRS radio with rechargable batteries is a must because you can use a solar power brick to recharge your batteries. Just be sure to have a stash of rechargable batteries tucked away as finding batteries in the aftermath could be like finding a needle in a haystack.
If its war you are surviving electricity is going to be a challenge. Communications bunkers will have to be on a power plan, you are going to need to know power draw, charging times and radio management. You won’t be getting on the air talking skip across the country for hours on end as you probably won’t have the power to do so. Your batteries will need to be charged either by solar or wind driven machinery. If you have gasoline and are charging using a generator your a lucky person, the rest of us are probably saving gas for something more useful and necessary.
However, maybe you are surviving something major but have access to power and electrical charging. Then there are many affordable types of radio that can be used to coordinate and facilitate your groups survival. These are very inexpensive yet offer huge channel capacity and decent frequency options some including aircraft band. The newest line of Baofeng radios might be your choice of gear. The UV9R, UV5RW, UV21L and UV17R are decent quality radios offering up to 999 channels with built in NOAA Weather radio and alert, FM broadcast radio, a flashlight, Manual and PC programming and a USB-C charging port for under $40 bucks. Quansheng is another cheap radio brand the UVK6(8) offers VHF/UHF/220 and Airband stock and with a free flash upgrade can transmit in the 10 and 11 meter bands as well. The Baofeng AR-152 is a Military knock off radio operating at 10 watts and can support these new military foldable antennas by ABREEE. Baofeng makes a DMR digital dual band radio that offers 64 bit encryption in digital mode for under a hundred bucks. By no means are these Motorola quality, but for under a hundred and TDMA DMR? I’ll take one please.
One has to wrestle with themselves over buying a Chinese radio especially considering there is a high probability that China has caused or contributed to the reason you and I are hiding in the sewer system waiting for the air to clear outside. Ultimately, Motorola, Kenwood and Yaesu make much better products however they are not cheap. Motorola radios are not easily field programmable but, the APX and XTS series are very common among US Law Enforcement so charging and finding accessories in a post apocalyptic world would be relatively easy. The XTS5000 and XTS1500 series are running $150 bucks on eBay and APX series run much higher at around a grand. They are APCO-25 compliant which is the primary protocol of digital used by local, State and Federal law enforcement. But the baofeng is $30 dollars. On the prepper budget I just don’t see APX radios flying off the amazon delivery trucks like I do Baofeng’s.