Post SHTF Communications

There are two shows that I have been enjoying over the last year... Jericho - the story of our country that has collapsed because of power hungry political bastards utilizing a Black Water mercenary group to cause the conditions which would allow them to take over. (A scenario that I have no problem envisioning.) And Jeremiah - the story of our country that has collapsed because of an engineered biological experiment gone bad and killed off everyone who had reached puberty. (A scenario that I have a little more of a problem envisioning.)
In both shows it is interesting seeing how the various elements of our society react to the ensuing conditions. But an interesting idea was brought up in Jeremiah. In one episode there was a bar/pool room where the owner kept track of people. When someone came through and had stories about where they had been - where they were going - who they had seen where - who they were looking for - etc, the 3x5 file cards and push pins in a map kept track.

After our upcoming catastrophe, whatever the form it takes, how will we communicate and locate others? Assuming there are no computers, phones, cells, mail service, etc? ... CB radios, Ham radios, word of mouth, ??.

Has anyone given thought to this? Any suggestions - or have heard of any kind of "bulletin board" for what might work?
Or would it all be a bad idea?

 

I think that when the SHTF that most people will not be trying to get a hold of friends and family that are far away. Our world will be much like it was long ago. A day's travel (on foot, horse, bike, etc...) will be FAR. Your family and friends that live near you will be the ones you will have the most contact with, and only rarely from farther away. At least until people start to travel more/travel farther afield, or a mail/pony express type sytem is developed yet again.

Assuming that the SHTF senario doesn't inclued the distruction of electronics (rather control of them) then I feel comunication will be much like in an acupided teritory. (i.e. France cerca WWII, Vietnam, etc...)

 

Jericho was canceled again unfortunately.

I think in a SHTF scenario where most phones if not all land line and cell phones are out that you will see a big re-emergence of CBs. When I was at the ranch a couple of weeks ago I was going through a cabinet in the house and came across all of the old CBs that used to be used on the ranch. There is still one in the old ranch truck, and a bunch in the cabinet. I meant to take a couple of them home with me, will next time I am there. It would be a good idea to have a couple of them in a Faraday box just in case.

 

I think all of the old CB'ers kept there stuff even after it died ,I know just like you I was going through the old shelves and came across about 5 of the ones that had more than 300 channels and even some in the 10 meter range ,I even found 3 old mobile units .
Now I'm looking for an antenna for them all .

 

i would say a nice cb radio with a sideband and a 100 or 200 watt lenear should get you a good bit of range the only problem is you would be brodcasting all your info to whoever else has one and is listening to that channel too. so i would say forget about long range talking and if you really have to just keep it to short burst and thats it .as for as family if they are all really close get them walkie talkies with a good 10 mile range and just use them for emergencies. now if the goverment and police are still active then the internet might be up you might not have electricity but you can tap into the internet if your within 10 miles of a tower and you don't need a phone line you can build a cheap but very affective wifi antenna out of a old satellite dish and use it to get your signal. there are many diferent ways to build a wifi antenna but i think this one is the best meaning useing the dish.some people use plates /pans and anything flat but i think the dish would work the best.

How-To: Build a WiFi biquad dish antenna

 

I'm looking for field telephones, EE-8 or TA-1 types or anything commercial or more modern. For internal comm on the home place. Concerned about government direction-finding measures with radio.

 

You know, I was thinking about CB's and how everyone seems to run a short vertical stick for an antenna... It would be interesting to treat them like amateur radio QRP rigs since they usually only run about <5W out of the box, with a long horizontal wire hung high and an antenna tuner. I've not tried it myself but I think most 11m base-to-base station operators could be missing out.

The ARRL has an antenna book that you can get from Amazon which will tell you more than you'll ever want to know about antenna theory. It seems the CB crowd is so caught up in linear amps and don't put as much thought into the antenna design... though it's true that with most CB operators running mobile rigs, it does limit their options.

 

As a ten meter loop is about 35.6' of wire; I'd hang a full wave loop up.

As trees are found easily I'd add reflector (36.5' of wire) spaced about 6.5' behind the first loop. Now it is a directional gain antenna.

Cubical Quad Antenna Calculator

Loops are about the oldest antenna known and they work quite well:

 

yep, radio is radio, and adding an amp is not going to help your reception one bit. The antenna should always be the first place you look to improve. Your puny 5w out on a standard CB when connected to a well designed beam antenna can give you the performance of more like 40w, and that works for hearing and talking. And the 11m band allows for antenna sizes that are pretty easy to manage.

If you need to talk over the horizon reliably, you can't count on a single band, no matter how much power you waste.

This is not a subject that can be conquered in a thread. It's a lifelong learning experience, don't wait for TEOTWAWKI to start learning.

 

As it works on both tx and rx antenna gain is hard to beat.