I get questions from time to time about the usefulness of ham radio and a big part of it is based on what they hear. They seem to forget 'the rest of the story' as the Late Great Paul Harvey used to say.
People often ask what is a foolproof way of communications in a SHTF situation. Fact is they are looking for a magic wand.
While it's true I've communicated with 244 different countries and entities around the world it's not an on demand utility. Everything has to be right for it to happen. The Propagation Gods have to be in a good mood for that to happen. Communication with Uncle Louie across the continent is not an on demand thing.
Actually if the power grid went down the majority of home ham stations would be silenced. They run on house current.
Still, let's take a look at the hobby as a possible utility. From a practical point of view ham radio is divided into 2 parts, HF and VHF.
VHF (aka 2 meters) is line of sight and as a result it is limited in distance because of the curvature of the earth, hills, buildings and other obstructions. You can increase your distance by raising your antenna higher off the ground but from a practical standpoint things go only so far.
Someone will probably jump in and say his cousin's college room mate spoke with the ISS in space and he probably did but you have to realize the ISS was above the horizon when he did that. It was in his line of sight.
In spite of it's limitations, VHF is a pretty good communication tool for short ranges if line of sight can be maintained.
The reason for this is that Very High Frequencies will go through the ionosphere and straight out into space and not 'skip'.
Radio communication is basically divided into two categories, ground wave and sky wave. VHF is ground wave and as a result is limited in distance as I have explained.
Sky wave is what most people hear about when they hear Cousin Nerdly talking about gabbing with somebody in Outer Slobovia or some other far flung remote outpost. It's when the signal hit the ionosphere and skip. They often hit the ionosphere, skip, hit the earth, skip back up to the ionosphere and skip again. If conditions are right then one can communicate with someone halfway around the world very clearly. If conditions are lousy you're not going to do very well. You're basically going to be able to use ground wave and pretty much be restricted.
Back to even simply getting on the air when the grid is down. As I said earlier, if the grid drops most stations go with it. Needless to say, some hams have various backup forms of electricity via generators, solar power and that sort of thing. I once ran one of my rigs for about a week on solar power. Still, it was touch and go.
While we're talking backup, I own a surplus military rig that has a hand generator that can recharge the battery but that's not as easy as you think. It can take hours of constant generator spinning to charge the battery to full charge. Still, it's doable. It's still far easier to recharge the battery with solar power or other means.
Another aspect that a lot of people seem to forget is training. Some people gather all sorts of 'survival equipment' and leave it in the wrapper thinking they'll be ready for TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It). They have knives, guns, long term stored food, camping equipment and God only knows what else, still in the wrapper and think they're ready to go.
A lot of good that does him if he doesn't have a simple can opener and know how to use it. He's going to go hungry.
So is having a piece of electronic equipment you have not even taken out of the box. Or a rifle. Or a tent. You have to know how to use your gear.
As a ham I would have to say that in a TEOTWAWKI or SFTF situation about the only practical uses I would have for being able to be on the air is the possibility of setting up a local net to pass local information on. That could be done with 2 meter (VHF) which is pretty reliable for local communications, assuming you don't live in the bottom of a valley somewhere.
The practical application in my case for HF would likely be would be the ability evenings on 40 meters to make contact with hams in OH, IL, and IN. That's because the weather comes to me from the west. It certainly would not be spot on accurate but it would give one some idea.
For example in IN just got a foot of rain it's a pretty good bet that western PA is going to get a pretty good dousing. Of course, the closer to western PA the station is, the accuracy increases.
The bottom line is that there really is no reliable form of grid down communication out there. There is no magic wand one can buy to be able to sit in Baltimore and chat with their grandchildren in Sacramento without some sort of infrastructure.
On the other hand it's another tool to work with.
After Sandy hit Puerto Rico I forwarded 5 joyful messages to 5 sets of parents that their loved one was safe. I got three of them directly from PR, one was a relay from a Cuban and another was from France. I worked a French station and he asked me if the email on my QRZ page was good. It was so he sent me an email forwarding the message.
In the FWIW department, these messages were short. "Call 123-456-7890 and tell her mom that Lisa says she's OK and staying in PR until next month." or "Call Sue Ellington 123-456-7890 Message reads Tom is fine. Will be coming home when I can." The messages were not much but they certainly served to calm down their loved ones. Sometime I'll post the relay that wound up being to a real karen.
Still, there really isn't a surefire form of radio communication out there that will make 24/7 365 communication possible that is available to the civilian sector although a 2 meter rig might work for local communication fairly well.
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