I fell down a radio comm hole on Youtube. Found the S2 Underground channel. Anyone else follow them? I like a lot of what they are doing but have by no means vetted all their stuff. I watched the GhostNet video and it really reminded me of some of the MonkeyNet stuff we were doing here for a while. I would love to see MonkeyNet come back, but I suspect that I will also print out and get up on Ghostnet as well, I suspect my personal comm plan with friends and family will touch both of these nets and then have some of my own proprietary stuff. Thoughts? -JW
Options are always good, and digital modes are great for getting a weak signal through where SSB sometimes falls short. It is also good to have a place to practice the various digital modes where there us an expectation of a reply to let you know you are doing things correctly. The greatest downside I see here is two-fold: Making it so public ensures there will be many listening who do not have the best interests of the community in mind and possibly even planned jamming. The second is should there be a disastrous event the plan all but ensures jammed airwaves on the published frequencies. I have seen many such plans unfold during my time as a Ham, and most eventually die out because there are too few disasters (a good thing) to keep people interested. I also have seen that the more detailed and constrained a plan is the greater the chances of its failure. I truly hope it takes off and becomes a success as it is always good to have more tools in the box. Our little local group, spanning 3 states now and hopefully growing, has informally adopted 14.250 and 7.250 as our "what's going on?" frequencies for SSB. There are no nets, we try to listen at the top of the hour should there be some event unfolding. Users are then encouraged to move off frequency for private discussions using whatever frequency or mode they choose. You likely will hear nothing here unless something big is happening. The greatest thing about Amateur Radio is that everyone can do what they like best. I do HF SSB, JS8CALL, and LEO Sats. My best friend is fixated on POTA. Another friend only does CW and has radios that he has no microphone for. Weigh out your options, decide what works best for you, and go with it. I will say WINLINK is an absolute must, and if there is an AUXCOMM organization in your state, joining it will ensure you get on the hardened government side for your messages to have an increased chance of getting through.
For sure I like having options. I have been a ham for more years than I normally admit, and then did shortwave before that. My current setup involves some JS8CALL monitoring at a few specific day/times with some other like minded friends, and then a once a week ragchew on 80 or 40 (propagation dependent). This and a few of the special event stations I like to do during the year is enough for me to stay up on my skills. Who calls whom, when, where, how, and what triggers "activation" of the comm plan should be personal and private between just the involved parties (my opinion of course) I think the thing I like about having a few different "Nets" or comm plans from groups, is it gives me a place to go if something happens that I am fairly sure other people will be and will be wanting to trade intel. I would never place survival dependent things at the whim of a publicly posted plan, but having a place to start looking when you need some information sure beats spinning the dial and hoping to randomly find someone, or God forbid calling CQ <shudders> Sec, first, good to see you, it's been too long. I was aware we lost BT, it was a huge loss here, he was my kind of monkey. Ham, Airplanes, Survival, we were simpatico for sure and he will be missed. -JW
I'm trying to break into HF radio (pure radio of some kind) and was looking at the xiegu 6200, an amp, and an antenna to get me going but 1), the radio just got released kinda, 2), I don't have either a license nor a clue, and 3), money is definitely tight. So I picked up a Belka HF4 which is rcv only 0.5-31 MHz. The other thing is I live in between mountains, all sides, and even though the Belka is a great rcvr, I'm still gonna need a proper antenna with that so I'm wanting the GA-800 active loop thingy, ~$100. The Belka was ~$160. Can't wait to get an actual tx/rx radio preferably the one mentioned. The amp is about the same cost as the dern radio too. That video above was all greek to me. Seems that comms in general is a giant mess and could and should be much easier. IMO, if you need anything other than power and an antenna, it's not really radio. I looked at meshtastic but it's like having a smartphone attached to your forehead. May as well just use your phone or an actual tranceiver.
Check out the G90. I have the G90 and the X6100 and now wish I had not bought the X6100. The difference between 5 watts and 20 watts is pretty huge. I work parks from time to time and the G90 does it well at 20 watts, the X6100 makes it a struggle. I'm sure in a SHTF scenario the 5 watts would do fine with all of the other electromagnetic interference gone, maybe. If you seek 100 watts, buy a 100 watt radio. You can always reduce power. That Xiegu amp is expensive, and the combination would cost more than a Yaesu FT-891 or a used FT-991 (a true shack in a box). Make ham friends and do a lot of reading and asking questions. It will save you money in the long run.
