How to Communicate When the Internet Goes Down: Handheld Radios

Okay, I'm not going to go into all the gory details - just what you need to get up and running in a pinch. There's no point in getting overwhelmed - unless you enjoy nerding out on this stuff, in which case, drop me a line and I'm happy to help you dig through it all.

There's a small handful of radio types you'll likely be interested in.

• FRS/GMRS Radios

• VHF or HAM Radios

• Shortwave Radios

• Mesh Radios

Each has a context in which they're most useful.

FRS/GMRS Radios

These are the typical little sports radios you see people with at festivals and events. You can pick them up cheaply from just about any electronics store, Frys, Best Buy, Amazon. The best thing to look out for on these is range. NOAA is also super useful for weather warnings and usually come in packs of 2 or 4.

ADVANTAGES:

• Super easy to get - They're all over Amazon, Best Buy, Frys and other electronics stores

• Super cheap - and usually come in packs of 2 or 4.

• Super easy to use - they come with 22 preset channels and every FRS/GMRS radio has the same channels so a protest could pick up a couple of hundred of these and no matter what brand, they'll all work together.

They're not professional radios by any stretch, but they'll allow you to coordinate a protest or sidestep being stuck in the kettle when things are getting sketchy. They'll allow you to broadcast advance warning to the rest of your group so they don't get stuck.

Most of these radios have a range of between 1-3km of usable range. In a city it can get a bit dicey as the radio signal gets interfered with by just about everything

Motorola claim their TALKABOUT T600 H20 has a talking range of 35 miles. I would NOT rely on that figure.

Once you get in among buildings where the signal is impeded and blocked, you'll find they're not often useful outside of about 1km. But this is still plenty okay for coordinating a protest among your family, friends and other protestors.

If you want to cut the noise between you and everyone else so you can hear yourself think they have a feature called CTSS which allows your radio to filter out only the traffic you want to listen to - your friends.

DISADVANTAGES:

• Not private

• Range is limited

• Don't have more advanced features such as APRS

While you can use these radios pretty effectively, they're not private, they can be listened into by anyone listening to the radio frequency your radio channel broadcasts on and while most people will filter you out because they don't want to listen to you in their conversations, they could if they wanted to be nosey... or wanted to intercept you.

You couldn't, for example broadcast a mayday signal outside the country to call for international assistance in the event of your not-so-friendly despot sending the Stasi to stamp out your protest. For that you will need a short wave radio which will allow international broadcast.

They don't have more advanced features such as APRS which allows you to send encoded data such as GPS location data, SMS, Telemetry, Status Beacons and while you likely won't need features like this, it can be useful under more advanced situations - think Search & Rescue, mapping etc.

VHF (HAM) Radios

While technically you're supposed to have a license for these to broadcast and under any normal sane democratic circumstances, most of the HAM community would be on your ass to get licensed and you'd be frowned upon until you do because there's all sorts of nerdy engineering stuff you're supposed to know about before you broadcast on HAM radio frequencies.

That said, the purpose of this document is to help you sidestep the Gestapo after they've shut cell phone service and the internet down to cut off communication and censor people, you still need to help organize the resistance.

It would be responsible of me to recommend that if you have the opportunity (and the inclination), go get yourself signed up for a HAM radio class, learn how to use it properly, get your license. It is worth it - although may be surplus to your goal right now.

So for this particular context, I'd probably say fuck it! If the Constitution is getting thrown out of the window and there's a loss of civil liberty and suspension of basic rights, do what you need to do. God isn't gonna care you didn't have a license.

So let's get into it...

HAM Radios are a bit more complicated than FRS/GMRS radios, it's not just a case of turning it on and setting it to channel 6 (or whatever channel you pick) and using it. However, they do give you a ton more flexibility.

That flexibility does come with slightly increased costs and complication.

One of those complications is needing to know actual broadcast transmit (Tx) and receive (Rx) frequencies in order to communicate as these radios don't operate on discrete channels, but radio frequencies and bands.

The major upside to this though is that instead of being limited to 22 channels your average FRS radio is limited to, you've got a plethora more communication options.

Here's my list of Common Radio Frequencies to get you up and running.

Things to know when purchasing:

When you're purchasing, there's a couple of useful features to pay attention to with HAM radios:

1. Bands: You'll see a lot of VHF, Dual-Band, Tri-Band. VHF is good enough, the long and short of it is that VHF is good enough, but Dual-Band and Tri-Band will open up more of the radio frequency spectrum to you which may provide you with more options if you find yourself in a tight spot.

   
   

2. Max Power: typically 5W, 7W, 8W, 10W... the higher the wattage the "louder" the broadcast signal - that means the greater reach you have. NOTE: Being able to broadcast further doesn't necessary mean you get more distance between you and people you need to talk to. If they have a radio with less wattage, you're limited to the range of the radio with the lower power.

   
   

3. Battery: Measured in mAh - milliamp hours. The higher the number, the longer the battery lasts. The higher the wattage (your Max Power), the more battery it will use to broadcast, so it'll drain your battery faster. Most radios come in the range 1800 mAh to 2500 mAh.

Recommendations

• Yaesu VX-6R - I recommend this one because I've got the long discontinued and slightly more capable Tri-Band VX-7R and it's been a trusty sidekick for 25 years. It's been solid that whole time. If the VX-7R was still available, I'd be recommending that, but the VX-6R is still manufactured and available, it's waterproof, rugged. Comes in under $300 per unit. Cons: Analog, that means no encrypted comms or APRS sadly, but it IS dependable.

• AnyTone AT-D878UVII Plus - provides encrypted DMR voice which is illegal on HAM and personal radio frequencies, but you can't stage a coup if anyone can hear your plans... so worth consideration, for that reason alone. If they're going to take away your rights, I don't see any reason to consider this particular law.

• iCOM IC-V86 IC-U86 - solid unit, reliable, reputable brand. Pros: water resistant, rugged, cheap, easy to get anywhere - they're available at a hundred or more stores all over California Where to Buy | Where to Buy | Icom America. or wherever you need to stage a protest. Cons: Slightly limited functionality - VHF only. That said, they're plenty capable enough for basic comms.

Now that you've purchased:

• First things first, set the time and date on it... this isn't really important, but it'll cause you less annoyance every time you look at it. One less thing to worry about later.

  
  

• Read my Common Radio Frequencies guide and program some of the useful frequencies into the radio. It's useful to have NOAA, Marine 16, Search and Rescue (SAR), Aviation Emergency Response. Marine 16, SAR and Aviation Emergency Response are always monitored, so if you are in range of their towers, they will hear your distress call. Also program FRS/GMRS channel 1 which is commonly used by preppers and then any other channel frequencies your group will be using to coordinate.

  
  

Shortwave Radio

This is the one that'll let you broadcast internationally. If you need to get an emergency signal out, this is the Bat Signal. It has a potential range of 500-10,000+ km. HAM radio enthusiasts have competitions to try and ratchet up communications with as many people from every country in the world.

Unfortunately the Shortwave Radio isn't exactly straightforward.

Because of the way the signal is bounced off the ionosphere to transmit your signal around the world, it's affected by all kinds of weird and wacky things you don't need to worry about with FRS/GMRS and typical HAM radios.

It's affected by such esoteric things as atmospheric pressure, solar storms, sun spots, auroras, magnetic variation of the earth, time of day, ionospheric layers, the seasons.

To be honest, this is probably beyond anyone's needs, but if anyone needs my help to dig into this, let me know and I'll walk you through it.

LORA Mesh Radios

I don't know much about these little things as I've only just discovered them, but they look really promising. Meshtastic LoRa – Mesh Communication

The concept is that each radio acts as a repeater for every other radio in its proximity. So you could theoretically have an entire resistance movement spread across a city, or indeed across the whole state and as long as every member of the party is in proximity of at least one other member of the party, the whole group can communicate with one another as the signal bounces across the network like your cell phone does across the cell network.

I can't recommend them as I only just discovered these little things, but I'll come back with an update when I've had more of a chance to explore them - I'm excited though.

Stay safe everyone!

Ben