I bought a couple of Baofeng hand held short wave radios so far , At the breakfast someone else had one similar. how about setting up a frequency for members in case there is ever trouble? would let member know whats going on, even if its only a snowstorm of power outage,
Great question shooter! EMCOMM (emergency communications) is super important during a natural or manmade disaster. I'll try to answer the question from the perspective of a new Ham radio operator. Last fall (after trying for years) a buddy finally succeeded in talking me into studying for and taking the FCC tests to get licensed to use the ham bands. I passed the Tech and General tests in Sept and the Extra test in Nov.
Here's a primer on VHF and UHF. So read the link if you want to get geeky details of MHz and bands and to really understand what gear you need to communicate, but suffice to say HTs (handitalkies), like the Baofengs, operate on two bands:
-2M (VHF)
-70cm (UHF)
Both VHF and UHF are line of sight comms. So for creating an NFOA emergency frequency, we'd all have to be line of sight to communicate with HTs (simplex mode). We can get around this line of sight requirement by using repeaters. These are essentially radios that are placed on towers, ridges, buildings, etc. that receive on one frequency and transmit on a slightly offset frequency. Since the repeater is in an elevated position, it's within the line of sight of most of its area and you can "bounce" your signal off it to others within the reception area of the repeater. The
Aksarben Amateur Radio Club has a list of local repeaters, as does the
Southwest Iowa Amateur Radio Club that show input frequencies, offets, and PL tones. Other areas Lincoln/GI/etc all have local clubs and repeaters, too. One local repeater I've started paying attention to during inclement weather is the K0USA repeater (146.940) where Douglas County ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) starts a SKYWARN net with storm spotters and other members calling in reports of heavy rain, hail, cloud rotation, and tornadoes. It allows you to get real time weather reports before the NOAA stations or TV/radio stations report on them.
So while you can buy a Baofeng HT on Amazon for less than $35 delivered and make the argument that the fedgov has no Constitutional authority to regulate the airwaves (which I wouldn't disagree with), no other Hams will talk to you and you won't be able to practice using the radio without a callsign, that you get after passing the FCC test. While you may think that all Hams would be preparedness and self-sufficiency minded, limited-government sorts, you'd be wrong. A bunch of them worship at the alter of the Church of the State and actually DF (direction finding) radio signals of unlicensed individuals to turn into the FCC. And they actually feel they're keeping the country safer by doing so. Quislings. So, without a callsign, you're not going to get much practice for Z-Day. And buying a radio, putting it on the shelf, and saying you'll be able to pull it out and communicate when the disaster strikes is no different than the person who buys a handgun with a box of ammo and puts them on the closet shelf having never loaded it, fired it, taken a class, or practiced, but is convinced that when someone breaks in, they'll be prepared to use it to defend their family. If you want to play with radios, then go get a license. And please don't whine to me about being in the FCC database with a license. If you're reading this, you're already on multiple .gov lists.
How to get licensed? It's really not all that hard. The first test is 35 multiple guess questions all taken from a question pool that's public. That's right, every question and the four answer choices are public and available online.
So do this:
Step 1: Download KB6NU's
FREE No-Nonsense Technician Study Guide and read through it a time or two.
Step 2: Install a free Ham Test Prep app on your phone to practice answering the questions.
Step 3:
Search by zip code and distance for an upcoming testing site near you.
Step 4: Show up for the test, pay your $15 and get licensed.
Easy peasy, right?
