Survival and Emergency Preparedness

BTW, love the cheap watch placed in with radios...

Cheap watches. You can obtain the cheapest Japanese digital watch for about $15. I have a pile of used Timex Ironmen. Of course, the batteries wear out over time. I regard the batteries as like an insurance premium. I have still a few used automatic watches.

I will give an insight into preps with a watch. You have all read how you should measure distances from your potentially assailed home to the big tree or the gate on the road. That makes sense. But how long does it take you to walk from the house to look out point in the day time and how long at night? How long does it take you to get from rally point to home? So a watch can have more than one role in your preps.

This thread got me to drag out my Baofeng GMRS/2m radios and check them out. They all need to be recharged. I'll keep the spare battery packs in the charger from now on. And I do have 12 v cords for them. I'm also looking at new battery packs for my 2m hand held ham radio.

Speaking of watches.... you can get solar powered watches off of Amazon for about $20. Or a Casio solar for about $40.

My wife gave me a Pulsar solar powered watch 35 years ago on one of our anniversaries. I've had a bunch of watches since then (all now broken or with dead batteries) but the Pulsar never had to be wound and never needed batteries. Still keeps good time. It's made by Seiko today but I think she paid less than $100 for it back in the day. It's my EDC watch, I've even dived with it (waterproof to 100m).

Mac66 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 02, 2024 9:22 am This thread got me to drag out my Baofeng GMRS/2m radios and check them out. They all need to be recharged. I'll keep the spare battery packs in the charger from now on. And I do have 12 v cords for them. I'm also looking at new battery packs for my 2m hand held ham radio.

Don't recommend leaving them on charge for long term.... Li-ions do best long term if charged to 85% and stored... so I'd just slow charge them up and check on them in another 6 months. Put it on the clipboard to redo... stored best in cool/cold location.
They can lose up to 5% per month.

READ ;
https://batteryuniversity.com/article/b ... -to-charge

tom mac wrote: ↑Wed Jan 03, 2024 8:59 am

Mac66 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 02, 2024 9:22 am This thread got me to drag out my Baofeng GMRS/2m radios and check them out. They all need to be recharged. I'll keep the spare battery packs in the charger from now on. And I do have 12 v cords for them. I'm also looking at new battery packs for my 2m hand held ham radio.

Don't recommend leaving them on charge for long term.... Li-ions do best long term if charged to 85% and stored... so I'd just slow charge them up and check on them in another 6 months. Put it on the clipboard to redo... stored best in cool/cold location.
They can lose up to 5% per month.

READ ;
https://batteryuniversity.com/article/b ... -to-charge

Good point, I guess I had forgotten.

I'm revisiting this thread...

When I got my UTV recently I started looking at ways to communicate both internally (these things are really loud) and externally (to others I might be riding with).

The obvious choice was GMRS since I already had them but blocking the UTV noise using radio ear plugs wasn't an option since I wear hearing aids.

I settled on FRS radios that hook to my Walker's electronic ear muffs in the short term. They are fairly inexpensive and were designed for shooting so I can always use them for that, but... still looking for long range comms when out on the trails or surrounding roads.

I do have a ham license but dealing with frequency bands and such is complicated. I also have a GMRS license (now only $35 and covers your whole family). I am leaning towards using GMRS simply because it's easier to get into and there is a lot more info out on it now than when I first got into it. In addition, a lot of off roaders have gone to GMRS (not so much ham) and there are a couple new GMRS repeaters near my woods house.

When I bought my Baofeng UV5Rs, they had taken a lot of heat because technically it was certified as a ham radio but you could program and use it on GMRS and a lot of other freqs i.e, business, marine, MURS, police/fire etc. So under pressure Baofeng locked the GMRS channels out so now the newer UV5Rs are ham+ only radios now.

However, Baofeng now has a type certified nearly identical GMRS radio called the UV5G pre programmed (that's what makes it type certified) for GMRS channel.

It should be noted that it is pretty easy to unlock the GMRS channels on the UV5R if so inclined.

If you prefer not violating the rules (not laws) but want access to GMRS and the same freqs as the UV5R when unlocked get the UV5G. If you don't care, knowing the FCC isn't going to be out patrolling and checking which model you have get the UV5R and unlock it. The basic UV5R can be found on Amazon for $17/ea in pairs and new UV5Gs are under $24/ea in pairs.

It should also be noted that both have 99 channels. On the UV5R those can all be programmed for send and receive. On the UV5G, the 22 GMRS channels and 8 repeater channels are pre-programmed as are the NOAA weather channels. All the rest of the channels can be programmed to be listened to (including Ham, business, MURS, marine, police & fire) only.

Those are hand held radios. Mobile/base station GMRS radios which are limited to 50 watts are $110-150+ not including antenna. You can get a 20 watt mobile radio for $110. A mobile antenna is $25-35+. I'm leaning that way for both my truck and my UTV. What I'll probably do is use a hand held with an external antenna first to see what kind of range I can get then move to an installed mobile radio. Then a base radio at the house.

Debating to go with ham or GMRS base at the house. I have a pretty good ham base station/power supply I got from my brother in law when his dad died. When/if I redo the garage into a man cave I may make a ham/radio shack in it.

There are also some other good Chinese (is there such a thing?) GMRS radios out there as well.

Lots of good info about GMRS on youtube now and if you want a somewhat informative but amusing approach look for notarubicon on youtube. He completely explains just about everything there is to know about GMRS. He also dogs hams incessantly which is pretty funny.

I'll keep everyone informed as things evolve.

1. thank you and keep us posted.

2. annually, I go through my radio gear. I did this a few months ago and here are my observations:

a. KISS principle.
(1) I can only retain so much information and when shtf, I will have to deal with complete newbies who have never touched anything since maybe a cb unit 20 years ago or seeing a cb unit used in a television rerun from 40 years ago - Dukes of Hazzard. So 99 channels/ lockouts/special codes/non existent repeaters are completely meaningless.
(2) The oldest of my gear is 40 years old and the most modern is over 10 years old. Fortunately, I purchased spares of items like antennas and empty removable battery packs and made multiple copies of instructions.

b. Magic antennas do not exist.
Would I like to have an extended range on my gear? YES! Is there any antenna that will give you a longer range through brush/trees/buildings/the curvature of the earth? NO!

c. Buy what I actually will need and will be useful principles.
(1) I do not need a communications unit for each and every person in a survival group. However, when I figure out the minimum number, I need a spare or two because thing break, get wet, fail.
(2) No government has a plethora of helicopters/care packages to bring me, so the focus is to spend the money on localized, nearly always line of sight short distance communications and not waste money buying equipment to talk to someone 3000 miles away.
(3) Despite the creativity of people in constructing survival scenarios, having extra batteries and empty battery packs trumps constructing solar panels/Walter Mitty like power units based upon a school bus battery that are not going to be handled by an 8 year old in an emergency.
(4) Are you worried about the air waves being jammed? I am not because virtually no one stores enough batteries to keep any radio popping past a day or two when shtf. The way you will survive is by having a communications plan that calls for you units to be shut down and not running most of the time: things like periodic and established check in times with observers or emergency check in times perhaps twice a day. Take your $20 CHinese 2 meter unit. How long does it run with using one set of batteries. How many people do you think have more than one back up set of batteries for just one unit. Oh, you have 4 units! Now you start having a need for a lot of batteries. And, within days, most of the guys who bought the cheap radio will no longer be taking up the air waves.

Re #4

One of the reason almost all of my portable gear can accept 12vdc ( or I have adapted them to do so ) either directly or to charge same

One of the reasons I'm into or getting more into GMRS is because it's a pretty easy platform compared to say...ham. I do have a ham license as well but there are some restrictions and all the freqs are confusing and the equipment is expensive.

GMRS is more user friendly (IMO). There is not as much etiquette as ham radio. It has become much more popular since I first got into it over 10 years ago. There was very little use of it back then. Now, preppers and offroaders have pretty much adopted it. And there are more repeaters available for it.

Which brings up my next point...If you are going to buy radios, use them. Get stuff you are going to use or as part of your everyday life. CB radio was once very popular but cell phones pretty much killed it. If you can find a use for GMRS and use it often enough that you become familiar and proficient with it all the better.

As I transition to the woods house life to hunt, fish, off road ride more, and just be out in the rural/country more I envision the use the use of radios mounted in/on all my vehicles and in my woods house. I think when that happens we (being my wife, and brother who lives up there as well) will find more use for radios in our everyday life. My brother lives 10 miles from my woods house which is reachable by mobile radio. I would like to get to a point where we use the radios to talk instead of phone/texting.

Having said all that I will probably set up a radio shack in my woods house with both ham and GMRS. I do have some pretty good ham radios I got from my brother in law when his dad died. Can't let good stuff go to waste. In the process of planning my man cave now so my radio shack will be a part of it.

Just an FYI...

Baofeng now has a UV5R type accepted for GMRS that is unlocked i.e, fully programmable for GMRS, Ham and other channels. I think there are 128 channels including NOAA weather channels. Chirp programmable and it's only $18 ea. through Amazon.

https://amzn.to/3pQsB0J

And once again, check out the notarubicon youtube videos.