Grid down, alternative communications.......

JimH

Regular Member
Thought it might be interesting to talk about what kind of communication platforms members currently have/use, including those that are independent of the electrical grid. What components are they made up of? How have the components been combined to make a system (or systems), and where do (or did) you use them? What kind of alternative power works for you, and is it sustainable?

I'm digging out stuff that hasn't seen the light of day for years, and am curios to see what currently works for others,
Thanks!
 

JimH

Regular Member
I currently have 3 cases of communication equipment that make up the alternative communications plan. Most of the equipment is at least 10 years old, so there are probably newer alternatives out there,,,,

Case #1; FRS…….the lowest denominator.
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I remember driving up to Joplin, Missouri a few days after the tornado hit back in 2011. A group of volunteers from work and the Benton County Fire Dept. had convoyed up and arrived at the place in Joplin where local disaster relief efforts were being coordinated. There were city, county, state, and federal organizations at the staging area as well as disaster relief NGO’s. Amongst the confusion that was occurring all around, someone had written in Sharpie (on a piece of poster board) “All volunteers use FRS channels 7 or 11 to communicate” and put it up on the wall outside the entrance to the main building….and that’s all it took.
A Primary and Secondary volunteer frequency on a radio network had been established, and while a little chaotic, people were able to talk to each other on it. Both FRS channels also had a Ham radio operators that were able to relay emergency traffic messages from the various groups (using FRS) to the local HAM radio Net Control stations (on the local repeaters). The main Ham Net Control station was literally 20 feet away from the County Emergency Operations Center, so the radio operators could pass along emergency traffic directly to where it needed to go. Volunteers were using the FRS networks for INTRATRIBE (within the group) communications and local Ham operators from the group were using the UHF/VHF Ham frequencies and repeaters for INTERTRIBE (between the group and the outside world). It was a classic hub and spoke architecture that worked o.k. Sure there were some challenged people on the radios, but with all the cell phone towers not in service or tied up with prioritized traffic(and no service available) it was better than nothing. The FRS radios provided the simple communications ability and base to build the other networks on.
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FRS radios require no licensing and come in a variety of flavors. I have used the Garmin Rino 120’s for a few years now without any issues. I would recommend buying radios that can be powered by a AA battery source.

Rino2.jpg

I also recommend keeping the manuals with the radios you buy, as well as a printed copy of FRS/GMRS channels and corresponding frequencies, in case you might want to program other radios..........
 
I'm a new HAM (General), so I'm just getting into radio. I have a couple of UV5Rs, which seem incredible for how cheap they are, but also seem to stir up love/hate in the radio community. I've also played around with APRS using an android app connected with the right cable to the Baofeng. Currently planning an antenna build for the house so that I can reach some of the farther away repeaters that my local ARES nets use. I dabble in computers/networking as a hobby, so I'm most interested in packet radio and the potential for mesh networks right now.

Your post has reminded me that I need to build a charging cable for my UV5Rs to charge off of USB, as I use solar to recharge small USB battery banks as my primary backup power source.
 

JimH

Regular Member
Congrats on getting your ticket! Have you checked into your local repeater or HF nets yet?
Baofeng (like) HT's certainly opened up opportunities for peple to get on the air, both good and bad. The apps and dongles available make it easier than ever to push packets/APRS/etc. They do what they do....
Back when I was getting into it, we used Winlink/Pactor and bluewater SCS modems that would scan and freq hop HF 24/7/365. The stations in the backbone network would receive, hold, and pass on mail when they connected with another station. Mesh networks really seem to be coming on strong, and I need to learn up on them.
Please feel free to post any projects you are working on. I believe we can all teach and learn..

I have been using this meter from Amazon to measure capacities of various USB sources:
meter.jpg
It's a Drok USB digital multimeter ...$9.99 Amazon Prime
 
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ZAMBONI

Newbie
Iridium Extreme with tactical and medical evacuation package. I carry it anytime I leave the country except countries that it is illegal. Came in handy last year during the Paris riots. Police shutdown smart phone service for a while near the Champs-Élysées when water canons were deployed, gas, burning cars, protestors preventing entry/exit from the area. Basically charlie-foxtrot.
 

JimH

Regular Member
Bump ... how would one go about selecting a frequency range, for both primary & secondary freqs?
When in Rome, do what the Romans do. If you are starting from scratch, using any available local resources and availability can be a good idea.
 

Boy Scout

Regular Member
I’ve dabbled in FRS/GMRS, and like most, use an 800 MHz trunked radio system at work. Not being a HAM, I know just enough about how they work to be dangerous.

I would think for true “grid-down” scenarios where repeater and electric-backed trunking systems would be knocked out, my estimation would be that simple VHF freqs would reign supreme. Possibly some minimal “encryption” by way of TX/RX on different freqs, but that requires some pre-established comms protocols amongst users.

All things being considered and the requisite warnings being issued, what about preprogrammed VHF marine radios for emergency comms within a smaller area, especially inland, away from the coasts and larger bodies of water? Speculating about true grid-down, sky-is-falling scenarios of course.
 

John_ACT

Newbie
General ticket ham here. I keep FRS/GMRS HT's, a couple of uv5r's and a newly acquired FT-70D HT, all ready to go. Also dual band radios in the truck and house. For all of these, I think it will be more of a power conservation, renewal issue. I can charge my batteries with my truck or a solar rig and continue to have comms. Perhaps a small, low power hf rig will be next.
 

Boy Scout

Regular Member
Hey y’all, resurrecting this one as I’m working diligently on this part of my planning. Anyone have any updates they’d like to share?

I’m currently working on my ticket and am setting up a comm protocol for my immediate network. I picked up a Moto 7350e (UHF dualband) that’ll be worked up for FRS/GMRS and DMR.

One thing I’m specifically looking for is “the next level up” beyond the regular HAM groups of OG’s talking about their drive to work and blood pressure meds... i.e., radios, headsets, TTPs and first-world applications in the field for folks like us.

-What kit are you using?
-What freqs/spectrum/tech are you using?
-Does COMMSEC even exist commercially?
-Pros and cons...

Thanks in advance, and I hope to pick up a lot of new info!
 

DavidMS

Amateur
I have a HAM ticket because its a great way to channel my inner geek. Best thing to do is to start on the local nets and then eventually start doing simplex. At the moment I have two Chinese HTs with good aftermarket antennas (one dual band, one triband). My only emergency use was monitoring traffic on Jan 20. Due to the events of Jan 6, a special net was run all day for people to report any suspicious or unusual activity. Presumably it would go to LE in support of public safty activities. I live near Washington, DC.

I also have FRS radios to interoperate with friends who hit the easy button and just got a GMRS licence.
 
I have Baofengs uv5r+ tripower that I only currently use to monitor my local Emergency, NOAA and a larger local network. I use Baofeng 888s for neighbor communications.

I have become interested in the Ham radio world recently. Hopefully I make time this year for it.
 

StuartB

Newbie
Hey y’all, resurrecting this one as I’m working diligently on this part of my planning. Anyone have any updates they’d like to share?

I’m currently working on my ticket and am setting up a comm protocol for my immediate network. I picked up a Moto 7350e (UHF dualband) that’ll be worked up for FRS/GMRS and DMR.

One thing I’m specifically looking for is “the next level up” beyond the regular HAM groups of OG’s talking about their drive to work and blood pressure meds... i.e., radios, headsets, TTPs and first-world applications in the field for folks like us.

-What kit are you using?
-What freqs/spectrum/tech are you using?
-Does COMMSEC even exist commercially?
-Pros and cons...

Thanks in advance, and I hope to pick up a lot of new info!
In family/close to home, FRS/GMRS is the go to. It's plug and play, anyone you meet you can hand them a radio and they're off to the races. I keep a few extra around for that. Something to listen on shortwave is a must, emergency broadcasts go out on those, and even if you don't Ham it up, you can receive HF and get some out of local area SA.

I enjoy ham radio as a hobby, so I have some UHF/VHF HT's, including some UV5Rs. Those are nice because they can double up and us FRS/GMRS frequencies in an emergency(Please note that this is not legal and I am not advocating it in a non-emergency). Many communities have volunteer ham radio organizations to handle first responder and other emergency traffic in a grid down. With a cheap UHF/VHF HT or mobile rig, you're able to capture some of that traffic, or possibly be the link between municipal/county resources and your local neighborhood.

Again, I do ham radio stuff, and am in to HF. That gives me the ability to get beyond line of sight in a grid down. I can do voice or digital modes with my rig, and have even sent email over my HF radio through a gateway 1000 miles away. So in a local grid down, that gives me the ability to get news from further out, and to let out of state contacts know the situation locally.

Regarding COMMSEC, any attempt to encrypt, obscure, or otherwise hide the meaning of messages on amateur radio frequencies is against FCC rules. I believe this is also true on FRS/GMRS. True encryption is, however, available on business radio frequencies. That's a more expensive license, with often more expensive radios, but if you want to pay for it, the option is available.

As a reasonable alternative, you could get the lowest level of amateur radio license(technician), which is a very simple test that you can easily cram for, and get digital radios. Every joe schmo that bought a 'feng and put it on their amazon.com web gear can hear an analog FM transmission, but digital radio will just sound like garbage to them. This isn't encryption, because it's an openly published protocol, and anyone who bought radios that use the same protocol will be able to understand you, but it cuts out a huge swath of the people who might listen.

Another twist: if you do your research on the area, some of the ham bands are used much less than others. Almost everywhere you'll find 2m and 70cm in use. Most HT's, including the UV5R do both. The 220MHz band is dead silence in my area, and most HT's won't even be able to receive it. You can buy a tri-band baofeng that will do 220MHz, but few people do. Again, that's still open analog FM, and in theory anyone with the right radio will hear it, but it's at least cutting out a lot of the chaff.

Another possibility is if you're going to have line of sight to your or a friends residence, you could put up a mobile or base station that has crossband repeat, so it receives on UHF or VHF, then transmits on the other. You'd have to have a radio on your person with dual receive, or two radios, but that would at least limit someone to only hearing half of your conversation.

If you don't require spoken word, there are ways to send text over UHF/VHF, such as APRS and WINLINK. You'd need a computer and an interface, but those are easy to sort out. Once you get in to the realm of text, in an emergency you could use any agreed upon cypher, in theory. Again, this is patently not legal, but theoretically possible. If Red Dawn happens in your town, I doubt the FCC will come knocking.

Another thing to think about. UHF/VHF is pretty stable. If you have line of sight, you really should have good comms. When you start talking about HF, there are a lot of variables and communication becomes more unreliable. If you want to guarantee you'll have comms with your crew, shell out the bucks for sat phones. If you like radio as a hobby and want to play with it, and know that you'll at least have some local comms and a shot at getting further out, radio is for you.
 

TomScott

Newbie
Thought it might be interesting to talk about what kind of communication platforms members currently have/use, including those that are independent of the electrical grid. What components are they made up of? How have the components been combined to make a system (or systems), and where do (or did) you use them? What kind of alternative power works for you, and is it sustainable?

I'm digging out stuff that hasn't seen the light of day for years, and am curios to see what currently works for others,
Thanks!
I don't have an emergency generator, live near downtown DC, have batteries and a Duracell backup unit. I have a GMRS radio license and am a general class FCC licensed amateur radio operator. New member of ARES. I Need to get more serious about this subject.
 
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