“Just get the ham equipment so you have it.  You don’t need a license to use it in an emergency.”

Hmmm.  I regularly read this on the Facebook feed for “Radio Preppers”.  Gil Grusen founded and administers the feed where the scroll of posts are sometimes relevant and even useful at times.  Like all social media, most “Radio Prepper” discussions are smothered with healthy amounts of contention and misinformation, so I very, very seldom participate – Don’t wrestle with pigs. You’ll both get dirty, but the pig likes it.

The question of license-or-not seems like a common chew toy and it really inspires the anti-authority inclination so easily associated with anything bearing the name “Prepper”.  Though I don’t completely disagree with the “buy it and have it on hand” ideology, I can’t fully align that with radio operations.  Even my relatively brief experience with RF operation is enough to cast serious doubt on a scenario where cell service falls off and we restore connectivity by passing out Baofengs to friends and family.

Right away I notice the learning curve of radio settings, the physical limitations of VHF/UFH and the undeveloped, unproven, and untrained path to functional EMCOMM.  

The Learning Curve Of Radio Settings.

I purchased my first radio, a Baofeng BF-F8HP, in June, 2019. It was covered in buttons that had no obvious or intuitive connection to functionality.  In other words, aside from the power button and volume knob, it was all a mystery.  Who knows if it works if they can’t transmit – if Watson can’t answer Bell?  I poked around the manual some then it all went in a drawer for more than a year until I licensed as a technician two years later. 

During my study for the license, I dug back in the manual and browsed YouTube for tutorials.  Lots of great information on the Internet, but I had to bounce around to find material that clicked in my head.  My point is, it takes time, patience, and most importantly desire to demystify the working of a simple dual band HT.  And the knowledge has a very short shelf life in memory.  It involves a good bit of trial and error that fades away if you wait a few weeks.  If asked to program a Baofeng today, I could honestly answer, “Beats me, I ain’t know nothin about no HTs.”

The Physical Limitations Of VHF/UFH

My first act as a licensed Amateur Radio Operator was to stand on a chair in the backyard and kerchunk the VHF repeater in McKinney.  Later, with a dual band vertical from Diamond zip tied to a 16ft painter’s pole, I found my first QSO, on the McKinney Repeater.  EMCOMM capability, right?  I immediately realized that in the event of a disaster affecting cell phones, I now had the federally licensed authority to wish I knew more about RF communication.

The 2 meter and 70 centimeter bands are truly mighty and powerful.  They can talk into space and back, even bounce off the moon.  But their wave form is short, which makes them really bouncy – so bouncy they’re affected by everything in the air like dust and moisture.  Each reflection decays the modulated signal until it’s unintelligible – it decays.  So the practical range at ground level, through ground level environment, is very short.

Back to the Radio Preppers handing out HTs when SHTF, they’re looking at about half a mile of reliability provided there’s no interesting terrain or structure between walkie talkies.  I think this is very valuable within the sphere of a neighborhood – tactically critical to communications for dispatching medical resources or linking observation posts to a coordinator and/or a Quick Reaction Force, QRF. The possibilities are endless and important but talking to the police or fire 10 miles away isn’t one of them.

The Undeveloped, Unproven, And Untrained Path To An EMCOMM Plan/Protocol. 

Let’s face it, we’re cats – we’re unique in our thoughts and behaviors and we’re disinclined to bend to authority.  It’s not that we’d resist an accepted authority, it’s that if we have a brain that thinks, we probably know better than the authority and just do our thing.  Getting civilians to work consistently in the same direction is like herding cats.  Especially if you’re not paying them.

In the Marines, we trained to the point of rewiring neural pathways.  Thousands and thousands of repetitions until reactions became accurate, instinctive, and instantaneous. Yet still, nothing was automatic.  We learned the only things you can count on is change – because we’re still cats.

Anyone who’s joined an RF net of more than three or four participants knows Net Control is critical.  It is the protocols;  the structured when to talk, how to talk, what’s appropriate “traffic” that’s so critical.

Consider that even licensed HAMs can’t comply with a standard, NATO, phonetic alphabet and will make up their own words, from America for Alpha to Zanzaber for Zulu.  With that in mind, consider your neighbor calling for help with chest pains while another neighbor needs to report strangers in the bushes behind the house next to the Smith’s old place. How do they communicate this without stepping on each other? How do you coordinate responses without stepping on the two different issues?

Predicting situations, defining protocols, proving protocols, and enforcing protocols don’t happen by opening a box and passing out HTs.

Back On Topic

I think it’s evident, having radios doesn’t make comms, having comms doesn’t make emergency comms, and having emergency comms doesn’t make safety.  So, “Just get the ham equipment so you have it”, won’t do it.  It’s not enough.  You’ll lack the knowledge, experience, and plans “to use it in an emergency.”

I’ll never tell the unlicensed curious they shouldn’t buy a Baofeng.  I did, and I suspect many more have.  Buying that Feng was the beginning of my Ham-Life, the kernel of seed that sprouted into everything I do with RF.  I say, you don’t need a license, buy all the radios you can afford.  But understand, it will live in the drawer of useless toys until you get a license and learn by using it.  Without a license, Preppers are better sinking resources into something productive.  The price of a UV-5R is near to that of a box of 124gr ball for your treasured Hi-Point.

TNX ES 73
KA5TXN
DitWit