Radios, Preppers and "SHTF"

So, you want a radio for SHTF Scenarios?

First, let me start with this. This article is not for the knowledgeable, or the “know-it-all”. It’s for people who have very little understanding of radios and/or prepping and is a kind of primer for them to use to get familiar. So, this is not to be considered as a “talk down” to people who already have a clue. We all started at the beginning of knowledge somewhere in our lives, and some times knowledge was more dangerous than we gave it credit for being, and common sense wasn’t rolled up in our backpacks to be used when we got cold at night. Please skip over this one, if you feel it is too “rudimentary for you”; or read it, and learn if you like.

Jump on the Internet and look around. Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, other social media platforms are full of “Preppers” and “Prepper Radio”, and various combinations. All around you, you’ll find the pros and cons of (very specifically) Baofeng Radios, groups using them (legally and illegally), and those who extol the virtues of those radios, as well as those who denigrate the same.

No, I’m not here to beat a dead horse or tell you how great or terrible a Chinese-built Baofeng might or might not be. To be fair and honest, I have several of these devices myself. The difference is, I use them for Amateur Radio - which is perfectly legal to do. In Amateur Radio, I can take ANY radio system and convert it for use in the Ham Bands. What I can’t legally do is convert it OUT of amateur bands for other usage (like FRS, GMRS, Marine, MURS, Business etc).

Again, though, I’m not here to discuss the pros and cons of any particular radio. Today we’re going to discuss WHAT type of radio you SHOULD have, WHY you should have it, and HOW to use it for true life threatening, dangerous, stuff-hit-the-fan scenarios.

Why DO you want a radio? Why do you want one that can transmit? What are the conditions in which you might use a radio to transmit, and more basic than that, to whom are you going to send signals?

Let’s break this down a bit at a time. This will be a rather long article, so please, read it carefully, and fully understand what we’re saying here. Don’t run off and assume anything. Think it over carefully. In the end, we think you will understand the ramifications of grabbing any old radio and transmitting.

First know that Amateur Radio Operators, regardless of how old they are, still had to take a test to demonstrate they have knowledge of radios, radio operation, safety precautions and equipment. Sure, some “memorize test questions” while others “learn the material and have an understanding”. Doesn’t matter, they took the time to learn, even if the “questions were memorized” they can still quote some of the required information on a test. That information will actually come in handy later to them.

You can have three hundred books on any specialized subject you want, in your library, but unless and until you pick one of those books up and READ IT and MEMORIZE some of the material, those books are useless. A radio is the same. It is mostly useless unless you know how to turn it on, program it, or tune it, attach an antenna or know what kind of antenna to attach, where to listen and to whom you’re going to communicate in the first place… the radio is useless. It, the books, a gun, a wrench, all tools, useless unless you have a basic grasp of how to use them.

In a true and dangerous, “stuff-hit-the-fan” condition, everything will be chaos. People will be worrying about surviving first, helping others later. They aren’t likely to be listening for you to call for help either.

Now, you might want a radio programmed into a police frequency that you can transmit on, to get help. During a true emergency, that will do two things for you, 1) Get you arrested or 2) get you shot because they think you’re interfering. Bad idea. Listening to a police frequency however might gain you information about the emergency.

You might program a radio to local Amateur Radio Frequencies to get help. Again, you likely won’t get a response from real hams unless you’re truly in need. But, we are there to assist of course, and would if we could. But, only in a true emergency.

What if you picking up a radio, without really knowing who you’re going to get in the other end is dangerous?

What IF the people monitoring aren’t really there to assist you, but are there looking for targets? For someone with food, water, shelter, who is in need of assistance - aka - in a “weakened condition”?

WHAT IF, the people to whom you transmit your location are coming to take your food, your water, your ammo, your children, your life?

In our military, we have something we call “Communications Security” and “Operational Security”, respectively known as COMSEC and OPSEC. These are principles through which we guard our operations and our communications. We never transmit weakness information. We never transmit information (Intelligence) about our operations. It is assumed those receiving our transmissions know the operations and mission requirements, in most cases.

Sometimes, the most important thing you can do, is simply KEEP QUIET. Don’t tell possible adversaries where you are, your condition, what you have, what you know, where you’re going and so forth.

Why DO you want a radio?

To listen to information. Radios are meant to pass information, intelligence, data. This is done by listening to them. Unless you’re the person with the information/intelligence/data that needs to be passed to the “Mission Base”, then you shouldn’t be telling people where you are, or anything else.

IF you’re part of a team rescuing people, this is a different story. If you’re directing the rescue to you, that’s a different story.

If you’re part of a security team in your neighborhood - then chances are good you’ve been trained or have some training in the subject. Otherwise, LISTEN.

In fact, the main purpose of any radio is LISTEN. Doesn’t matter the type of radio and it doesn’t matter if it can, in fact transmit as well.

Why do you want one that can transmit?

Many reasons. You might be a part of a larger group doing perimeter security in your neighborhood when the SHTF. You might be a Ham, you might have a GMRS radio, you might have a dozen other reasons. None of them are critical, and none of them REQUIRE you to be able to transmit, but it’s nice to know you could if you wanted to.

The vast majority of people I’ve observed in the various “prepper groups” - and I mean VAST majority, have little information about radios, but have this nagging urge to have a radio in their hands. Some get license. Some claim “I don’t want the government to know I have a radio.” There are many other, rather dumb and sad reasons that are made up, as excuses not to take a ham radio license, but in my personal opinion, it’s simple “Laziness” in most cases. The assumption that they know more than they really know about the subject. That’s fine. Realization will, one day set in that the knowledge in those three hundred books in their personal library is completely useless if they haven’t put that knowledge in their heads….

The TRUE reason to have a radio.

To collect information. That’s it. That’s all. Nothing else.

Information that can save your life, save others’ lives, tell you where to go to get supplies, tell you where to go to be safe, tell you when it’s safe to go home, tell you where the danger is located and to tell you the condition of the rest of the world around you.

YOU might be that person giving that information to the world, which is really why you want a radio that can transmit as well as receive.

YOU might also be the person that brings the “danger” to you in the form of an adversary.

The BEST radio to have in SHTF situation?

A Shortwave Radio. Preferably one that has an AM Broadcast Band, FM Broadcast Band, and has a general coverage of frequencies from 1 Megahertz to around 30 Megahertz, as well as a decent antenna.

Shortwave is considered to be 1-30 Mhz and is called “shortwave” because the wavelength is shorter than the radio bands below 1Mhz (it’s a left over description of the ancient days of radio. The higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelength.)

Why Shortwave though?

Local stations on AM and FM are likely to be up in an emergency, as they will have emergency power generation and so on.

Shortwave stations from around the world, with the right antenna can be heard on different bands, at different times of the day and night, based on the propagation of radio wave in those bands. You might be able to pick up news from Europe, South America, the Caribbean, Africa or Australia at night to gain a “big Picture” of what is happening.

Military signals are in those bands. Ham radio signals can be heard in those bands. Weather information, Marine vessels, even aircraft can be heard on the shortwave bands if you know where to look.

Bands, Frequencies, Wavelengths

What are these things we call bands, frequencies, wavelengths and why are they important?

For a radio signal to be heard, it needs to be captured and fed to a radio. Radio signals are what are known as “Electromagnetic wave forms”. We understand (through physics) that a radio wave is an alternating signal that is sent from what is called an oscillator circuit, perhaps amplified and sent to an antenna.

The waveform has a sinusoidal form measured in “cycles per second” (also called Hertz). The important part is that a single cycle is also called “the wavelength” of the radio signal. For example, a common AM broadcast band radio station might broadcast on 1000 Kilohertz (KHz) or 1000 thousand cycles per second.

That number means there are 1 billion cycles of the radio wave in one second. The length of time of ONE cycle is calculated by using the speed of light (generally simplified to approximately 300 million meters per second, or 186,000 miles per second).

The formula for calculating the Wavelength of a radio signal is:

wavelength (λ) = wave velocity (v) / frequency (f)

The wavelength is very important, because it determines the best, most efficient antenna length you should use - or multiples thereof. In the above example we plug in the numbers from what we know to calculate the physical length of the antenna for an AM broadcast station:

wavelength (λ) = wave velocity (v) / frequency (f)

(λ) = 300,000,000 / 1,000,000

(λ) = 300 meters or about 984 feet long.

A single sine wave of a 1000 Khz radio signal is 984 feet long! Nothing “short” about it.

A full wave long wire antenna would be 984 feet long, fortunately, you don’t need that, you can use multiples to pick up Broadcast Band frequencies with shorter antennas usually, and loopsticks (wires wound on ferrite cores) and things like dipoles and so on.

But, these frequencies have very special properties, which is why a shortwave and BCB radio are best for collecting information. These signals will bounce (technically bent) at the ionosphere, and will go over the horizon to distant parts of the world. So you can pick up “Radio Moscow” in your living room in Kansas. Or in a tent, in a field, under trees with wire strung above you. Or on a mountain side, or deep in a jungle. This is why High Frequency Radio, or “Shortwaves” are used by the military around the world.

And you should use it too.

Amateur Radio bands, many of them, fall in these short waves. It’s how we communicate to distant, foreign countries.

Reception of signals isn’t as critical as transmission. THIS is the important part about radios you need to know. If you need to listen, you can listen to most anything, on most any kind of an antennas (Longer is better at the lower, or shortwave frequencies).

On a “Baofeng” or handhelds, the majority of them fall into the VHF or UHF ranges. These are TRUE short waves, but they only go “Line of Sight” and basically are blocked by everything. Buildings, mountains, trees, rain, fog. Short antennas are used. And short distances are all they are capable of doing (without “repeater systems” or some other way to extend coverage). There is no RF propagation (or what CBers call “skip”) except in extreme cases called “ducting” which is actually an atmospheric phenomenon, and not an ionospheric property.

A frequency is a specific “channel” in a band, like 27.125 Mhz, or “Channel 14” of the Citizen’s Band radio band. The “Citizens Band” consists of 40 discrete, exact frequencies that are generated in a radio transmitter and received on a receiver.

A BAND, is a grouping of frequencies. Sometimes a few like CB, or many, many like in the Amateur Radio 20 meter band. The 20m band consists of frequencies ranging from 14.000 MHz to 14.350 MHz. This band is widely considered among the best for long-distance communication (DXing) and is one of the most popular and crowded during contests.

A licensee may operate on any of those frequencies in the 20m band as long as they remain inside those “band limits”.

Amateur Radio has MANY BANDS in the USA and other countries. 20 meters is only one of the bands, and by the way it is called “20 Meters” because that is the BAND of RF in which it is located. Remember as you go up in frequency, your band number gets smaller and smaller (because it is based on the physical length of a single wave form at a given frequency as demonstrated in the wavelength formula give before.)

Citizen’s Band has precisely 40 channels (or frequencies).

Ground Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) has 22 exact channels (or frequencies) and operates in the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) Band between 462-467 MHz exclusively.

The AM Broadcast Band lies at 535 kilohertz (KHz) to 1.6 MHz - and is called the “AM Band” on most radio receivers.

Summary and Conclusion

We hope this article has helped new comers to “radio” to understand some basic terminology, like Band, Frequency, Wavelength and also to grasp that sometimes you don’t WANT to transmit signals, rather listening is the more important aspect of using a radio of any sort. The reception of information, also called “intelligence” is nearly always more helpful that telling others of your position, and perhaps advising them of your strengths and weaknesses. In a true S-H-T-F scenario, giving away your location could put in grave danger, unless you’re attempting to get OUT of danger. The choice, ultimately is up to you.

Until next transmission,

73