quote:

Originally posted by Jimineer:
Roger that on the license.

For me personally, I have an FT-991A that I can go mobile with. I can dial down the output power as needed.
With a Bioenno battery or two and a solar charger I can make due without house power and my truck has two 12V batteries.

The IC-705 is nice, and portable, but I don’t like being limited to 5 or 10 watts.

what type of ant do you use and what kind of range, on a good day, does it get?

quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:
Be aware that in case of a declared state/federal emergency, all repeaters will be used for emergency traffic, only. County officials usually take charge in this event…..

KJ7FTH

Are you sure about that?
I have been in two disaster situations; one in VA and one in NC and in neither of those situations have any officials taken charge of any repeaters. In fact most repeaters are owned by HAM clubs and while they are eager to assists in any way possible during an emergency they have not restricted individuals from using their repeaters.

Most County governments around here are on their own secure frequencies that will function in the event of a loss of power.

Getting to another comment posted earlier some of the better set up repeaters have battery and solar back-ups to facilitate their operation in the event of loss of power.

quote:

Originally posted by golddot:

quote:

Originally posted by Jimineer:
Roger that on the license.

For me personally, I have an FT-991A that I can go mobile with. I can dial down the output power as needed.
With a Bioenno battery or two and a solar charger I can make due without house power and my truck has two 12V batteries.

The IC-705 is nice, and portable, but I don’t like being limited to 5 or 10 watts.

what type of ant do you use and what kind of range, on a good day, does it get?

For HF I have a CobraLite dipole with the balan they sell, mounted at 20 ft at the feed point and each end sloped to about 10 ft typically. On a good day I can get into western Russia on 20m band and most of North America on 20m and 40m band. https://www.k1jek.com/

For vhf/uhf I put a mag mount dual band mobile on my truck. I need an good option for a flexible J-Pole I can hoist into a tree. I don’t have a recommendation though. At home I use a Tram 1480 mounted up at 20 ft and can hit 30 or so miles to a repeater. I have so many repeaters around me I haven’t tested max range.

It would be cool to see if you could hit the “flame” in Dallas from Paris but you would need a directional antenna up in the air a bit. Mtcradio.com might know if anyone has tried to.
This isn’t within your packable/SHTF parameters but will help to find some limitations.

If you want reliable coverage without a repeater you're more or less going to be limited to line of sight communications. Antenna height is going to be the biggest factor here.

Here is a line of sight calculator you can plug your antenna height in to see how far your line of sight is. I assume you can roughly double it if the other antenna is mounted at the same height, and any terrain in between is going to be a limiting factor.

Line of sight

You could also set up your own personal repeater at the halfway point if you have the means which would help tremendously.

Since the OP is looking for plug/play in SHTF situation, would Marine SSB be an option?

Ignoring all the rules you would be breaking using marine ssb on land, would it not fit the bill? I believe it's damn expensive but doesn't require any special licenses, comes preprogrammed, etc.

Marine SSB can easily cover the distances he is talking about.

2 MHz 200-400 miles
4 MHz 400-600 miles
6 MHz 600-1,200 miles
8 MHz 800-1,600 miles
12 MHz 1,200-2,400 miles
16 MHz 1,600-3,200 miles
22 MHz 2,200-4,000 miles plus
26 MHz unpredictable during our solar cycle minimum

quote:

Originally posted by smlsig:

quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:
Be aware that in case of a declared state/federal emergency, all repeaters will be used for emergency traffic, only. County officials usually take charge in this event…..

KJ7FTH

Are you sure about that?
I have been in two disaster situations; one in VA and one in NC and in neither of those situations have any officials taken charge of any repeaters. In fact most repeaters are owned by HAM clubs and while they are eager to assists in any way possible during an emergency they have not restricted individuals from using their repeaters.

Most County governments around here are on their own secure frequencies that will function in the event of a loss of power.

Getting to another comment posted earlier some of the better set up repeaters have battery and solar back-ups to facilitate their operation in the event of loss of power.

The Pima county supported (funded) repeaters might involve politicial input in an emergency as they are mounted on several tall Tucson buildings. The privately owned repeaters may or may not be affected by County officials during an emergency.

quote:

Originally posted by Yanert98:
Since the OP is looking for plug/play in SHTF situation, would Marine SSB be an option?

Ignoring all the rules you would be breaking using marine ssb on land, would it not fit the bill? I believe it's damn expensive but doesn't require any special licenses, comes preprogrammed, etc.

Marine SSB can easily cover the distances he is talking about.

2 MHz 200-400 miles
4 MHz 400-600 miles
6 MHz 600-1,200 miles
8 MHz 800-1,600 miles
12 MHz 1,200-2,400 miles
16 MHz 1,600-3,200 miles
22 MHz 2,200-4,000 miles plus
26 MHz unpredictable during our solar cycle minimum

can you elaborate sir???

this sounds ideal

i just read this, it sound ideal fo rmy needs, now to suggest a useable, man pack/portable radio of that type?

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
In a SHTF event, wont the repeaters be down?

What about a satellite phone call to a satellite phone? The satellites are up there and will always be up there...

My questions too. How long will these repeaters remain with power? Do they have battery/solar backup? A generator on site? Do they use any type of landline/fiber optic etc to relay? Thx.

quote:

Originally posted by walker77:


How long can you get off of one battery?

Depends on what all is being run and whether transmitting and receiving or just receiving.

Very long time if a single radio and mostly receiving with only occasional transmit.

Haven’t really done a time test, basically just need to determine your current draw and do the math for how long 10Ah would last.

quote:

Originally posted by coloradohunter44:

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
In a SHTF event, wont the repeaters be down?

What about a satellite phone call to a satellite phone? The satellites are up there and will always be up there...

My questions too. How long will these repeaters remain with power? Do they have battery/solar backup? A generator on site? Do they use any type of landline/fiber optic etc to relay? Thx.

Repeaters are typically owned and maintained by ham radio clubs on top of all sorts of buildings and on towers. So the answer is probably yes and no.

A good comms solution should make use of multiple technologies in my opinion. While power is working, use them and move on from there when power is out.

Also, for those that don’t know, Cuba recently jammed ham radio there to keep Cuban’s from contacting people in Florida. Options are good.

quote:

Originally posted by Yanert98:
Since the OP is looking for plug/play in SHTF situation, would Marine SSB be an option?

Ignoring all the rules you would be breaking using marine ssb on land, would it not fit the bill? I believe it's damn expensive but doesn't require any special licenses, comes preprogrammed, etc.

Marine SSB can easily cover the distances he is talking about.

2 MHz 200-400 miles
4 MHz 400-600 miles
6 MHz 600-1,200 miles
8 MHz 800-1,600 miles
12 MHz 1,200-2,400 miles
16 MHz 1,600-3,200 miles
22 MHz 2,200-4,000 miles plus
26 MHz unpredictable during our solar cycle minimum

He would have to pick the right frequency for his situation though. Most of those would probably bounce right over his receiving station, 2 MHz would probably work. It would also be subject to atmospheric conditions, but could still be the best solution.

quote:

Originally posted by walker77:
How long can you get off of one battery?

It depends on the Amp Hour capacity of the battery, the efficiency of your radio, your output power, your mode, (SSB, CW, FM, etc) as well as how often you transmit as well as receive.

I was the Technical guy for a Ham Radio group that ran 8A battery on field day. We took first in our class every year for over 20 years and we ran on batteries with no solar panels at all. Most ran batteries that were around 100 AH and we ran 24 hours straight, continuously calling and talking for that entire time frame. We were able to do that because we ran QRP (5 watts) the whole time.

Yes, you can talk to the whole world on 5 watts if you have a good antenna and propagation is good. If not, you can still talk to the continental united states even during bad propagation.

I owned and ran 2 repeaters, one VHF and one UHR for over 25 years and I was on a site that was owned and run by the County Communications people. It had a backup diesel generator on site and allegedly enough fuel to run for a couple of weeks. I have no idea if it would actually go that long, though, as it never happened.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Flash-LB,

we see where just this storm has knocked out all 6 lines for 911 in NOLA,

THIS is what I am preppring for

quote:

Originally posted by Yanert98:
Since the OP is looking for plug/play in SHTF situation, would Marine SSB be an option?

Ignoring all the rules you would be breaking using marine ssb on land, would it not fit the bill? I believe it's damn expensive but doesn't require any special licenses, comes preprogrammed, etc.

Marine SSB can easily cover the distances he is talking about.

2 MHz 200-400 miles
4 MHz 400-600 miles
6 MHz 600-1,200 miles
8 MHz 800-1,600 miles
12 MHz 1,200-2,400 miles
16 MHz 1,600-3,200 miles
22 MHz 2,200-4,000 miles plus
26 MHz unpredictable during our solar cycle minimum

Marine SSB is (in a technical sense, not a legal sense) about the same thing as HF ham radio. It operates on similar frequency ranges and has similar antenna requirements and the equipment is basically the same, just programmed a bit differently.

It's not something you do with a walkie talkie.

If you're going to use Marine SSB illegally on land, you might as well use HF ham radio illegally without a license.