Communicating in an Insurrection: Amateur Radio and You – A GUEST POST BY Nathan Brindle, KC9YTJ

According to Hoyt ^ | January 13, 2021 | Nathan Brindle, KC9YTJ

[tbw2]

What’s the point of bothering, and spending all that money, if everything goes to hell in a handbasket?

Well, for one thing, we’re not in the handbasket yet. And becoming a part of the local amateur community is a good thing – you’ll create friendships and alliances, learn more about the hobby from those who have been there and done that, and even be able to assist your community if the shit really hits the fan in a non-political sense.

[Pollard]

Grabbed a gmrs license a couple of days ago. Not Ham but it's a start. I'm buying a couple of programmable two way handhelds that will do gmrs/frs and also scanner frequencies. I already have a scanner so I'll probably just reprogram that for the local frequencies. It's still programmed for the previous place I lived. Don't want to get accused of anything by having a two way on police/fire frequencies.

We're on 15 acres so the gmrs should work on most of it. There's a little valley running down the middle. When we build our real house, it will be down near the valley so the gmrs should work everywhere. I'm not getting any younger so it will be nice to be able to phone home when I'm in the woods cutting trees down. Help, I fell a tree on me and I can't get up!

I'm watching craigslist for ham and shortwave equipment.

Someone mentioned the Channel 3 Project in a Ham thread. It's still around, https://amrron.com/communications-resources/ch3-project/

While researching gmrs radios, I ran across this; (RT97 Portable Repeater Power Amplifier UHF).

UHF, VHF, GMRS versions. Only 5 reviews but all 5 stars. Here's one review from amazon(which is all I use amazon for now):

I bought this pre-programmed to GMRS Frequencies from Retevis. I have it up on a mountain side about two miles from my house. It is powered by a 9 amp hour battery that is solar recharged. The antenna is a N9TAX roll up SlimJim. It lasts four days in the battery with no sun. 22 Miles from its location is my brother in law's home. We both has small Baofeng UV5 radios. We could clearly talk from his house to mine.

I could get this and a bulk pack of handhelds and set up comms between me and the neighbors if the shtf. There's supposed to be a small community of preppers/survivalists 10-15 miles from me. Might be time to reach out. I've talked to one guy on the phone. He was selling solar panels and accessories and I was in need of a charge controller. He mentioned being a prepper. Also saw him at the local lumber store. Only knew who he was by the sign on his p/u truck door that advertised his solar services and had his name on it. I didn't let on who I was. Seemed like a nice guy. Wasn't wearing camo or dark colors and dark glasses.

Question:

If I wanted to communicate with this prepper community, what Ham band(s) would be best with a Tech license? 2 meter?
Also, am I limited to line of site?

[freebird5850]

Yes 2m is good, also 70cm band. You can get a handheld that covers both. Line of sight yes but you can also transmit to a “repeater” station that rebroadcasts your signal over a wide area depending its’ coverage. Good luck!

[alabama_heart]

Kilo Oscar 4 Charlie Oscar Delta here.

[tbw2]

I’m maintaining a freeper ham radio ping list.

[freebird5850]

Please add me, N7LRG.

[Big Red Badger]

I’ll join Your
Ping list,
I’m a Radio “operator!”

[clearcarbon]

"Anyone have Nellie Ohr’s Ham Radio handle?"

If legitimately licensed, in earlier times it likely would be "Nellie."

[Pollard]

I'm in the Mark Twain National Forest. Don't know about repeaters but if I had to guess, 50-100 miles away from me. Well holy carp, there's one in the town that I would be trying to do comms with. Might be that prepper community. Looking to someone's repeater google map, it looks like that town but looking up his call sign, same city as me for mailing address but that other town isn't really a town so it probably uses my city as a mailing address. When I say city, I use the term loosely. Same with town really. Our Post Office is a 10x20 room in the general store and they're open half a day, run by one person. The town I do my grocery shopping at has PO boxes in the corner of the grocery store. That's for all the people that USPS won't deliver to. They won't delver to a buddy of mine 6 miles away because he's the only one on that 10 miles long road and he's centered in that 10 miles. He gets his mail at that grocery store which is technically in another county.

Looking at a topo map, he's a little lower than me and there's some knolls in between that are a little higher in elevation. Depends on how accurate these online maps are. The personal google map of repeaters is off compared to his address on google maps. Enough so that a knoll may or may not be in the way. Gonna run out there now and see if I can find a tower. It's 5 miles away.

This gives you an idea of the terrain. My location is at the higher of the bold lines in the green area and his is almost that high in the white area, depending on his tower location. I'm close to centered, just NW of little bitty knoll and he's N/NE of me in that white neighborhood looking area.

Could a repeater be powerful enough to overcome a 20-50 foot tall knoll and/or trees in between me and it if I have a low power unit(handheld or mobile) and no tower?

[Texas Fossil]

I ran a Navy/Marine Corp MARS station out of my home and car for 19 years. ( it no longer exists now) NNN0INH

They were great guys and the best collection of engineers and techs I have ever known.

[Texas Fossil]

Read she is no longer a ham.

[freebird5850]

Repeaters are usually installed at high elevations, either towers or high terrain. Here in NW Wa (Puget Sound) they are up on mountains so they are easy to reach by handheld. I would love to live in the boonies like you :)

[freebird5850]

But I do live on an Island here (Camano) so that is kinda cool.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Anyone have Nellie Ohr’s Ham Radio handle?

---

I think she was Technician Class. Not very good for communicating outside the US.

[Mark17]

You can be sure our police and military already have direction finding equipment. So all ham operators beware.

I don’t think they need it. The FCC has all call signs, names and addresses, available in seconds.

[Pollard]

Found the guy's house. He's up on a mini plateau with a pretty clear view for a few miles in every direction. Only a 40 foot tower or so. I'll stop by and talk to him sometime. There was one SUV in the yard with antennas on it but I didn't see any activity. Probably go mid morning Saturday or something.

Could end up being my Elmer. For starters, he'll know what it takes to have more coverage than a cell phone. My wife works second shift at a nursing home and there's cell signal 10% of the trip at best. Several high spots but only two are cell signal spots and not 100% of the time. It would be nice to carry a hand held in the truck and be able to walk up to the top of any hill and get a signal. Breaking down here in the boonies with hilly, curvy roads can be scary. Break down at the tail end of a curve, 55mph with gullies on each side of the road so that you can't even coast off to the side is not a good situation.

Break down in a valley and that mobile unit mounted under the dash might not do you much good.

Here's a topo with line drawn between me and him

Looks like I'm good to go, once I get permission to use his repeater. Line's a little off. Bottom end should be a bit to the left close to that heavy topo line. I'll probably get a mobile unit for the house. I'll be getting our solar panels set up again in a few months and we run a 12vdc setup with 12vdc LED lighting and an inverter for internet, TV, cordless phone and charging things. Need new batteries and charge controller. Then I can run the mobile unit off of that and it will work even when the power goes out. My buddy's got an old steel antenna tower I can probably get for next to nothing. Should be stout enough to not need guy wires. Just a 3 foot cube footer and fabricate a hinge system for the bottom. Maybe a brace to the house. Might be 30' or so but I can add some 2-3 inch thin wall pipe to the top and get to 40 or so.

Geez, now I need GMRS units for the property and tech capable Ham units for around town. GMRS first. Wonder if I can talk my wife into getting a tech license.

Need to break out the old CBs and give them a test run. We've got a handheld and very basic mobile unit, no sideband, that we used to communicate between the two vehicles when we moved out here. LOL, I drove an old wrecker with boom removed but stored on the bed to make room for a 5th wheel hitch pulling a 35 foot camper, loaded with tools and equipment. She drove a loaded 14 foot Ford box truck with van cab, pulling a 24 foot car trailer with vehicle and two 1970 Sears garden tractors, 1965 truck cab and misc stuff. Lived off grid in the camper for two years while we looked for land. First winter, I took the box off the box truck, cut a hole in the side of the camper and stuck a wood stove in it and we used it as a kitchen. Both were old and not worth much and eventually got scrapped when they were paying good prices. Got almost as much as we paid for them, minus money spent on making them roadworthy. Hard core and poor. Good preparation for communism I suppose.

[Mark17]

License to operate has you on file with the FCC and online with address for the PUBLIC to view at any time.

You are correct sir. Also, don’t assume all Hams are conservatives. I have known some Hams who were woke, and leftists. I refused to have anything to do with them. Not all of them are good people.

[PLMerite]

“You can be sure our police and military already have direction finding equipment. So all ham operators beware.”

We were doing accurate HFDF on German U-boats in WWII. I can assure you it’s only gotten better.

[Nailbiter]

flr

[230FMJ]

for later

[usconservative]

Easy enough to find on the FCC ULS database available online.

BTW we do not have handles. We have callsigns.