Recommendations for a small radio for emergency?

Where the hell did you get this "miss information "? There are more licensed amateur radios operators today than ever before!

I would suggest you check your facts first.

US Amateur Radio Numbers Reach an All-Time High
03/04/2015

Amateur Radio growth in the US continues to soar. At the end of 2014, the total number of radio amateurs in the FCC’s Universal Licensing System (ULS) database reached an all-time high of 726,275. The trend has continued in the first 2 months of 2015, which saw the ham population rise to slightly more than 727,000. The figures exclude expired licenses that are within the 2-year grace period, and club station licenses. Outside of a little dithering last fall, growth in the Amateur Radio Service in 2014 was steady, according to figures compiled by Joe Speroni, AH0A, on his FCC Amateur Radio Statistics web pages. Over the past decade the number of Amateur Radio licenses in the ULS database grew by some 8.1 percent. But 2014 also was a banner year for the ARRL Volunteer Examiner Coordinator (VEC).

“For the first time in the ARRL VEC program’s history, we have conducted more than 7000 Amateur Radio exam sessions in a year, an important milestone,” said ARRL VEC Manager Maria Somma, AB1FM. “A total of 7216 ARRL-sponsored exam sessions were administered in 2014, compared to 6823 in 2013.”

Somma said the number of new licensees spiked to more than 33,000 in 2014, up by about 15 percent from the previous year. Successful license upgrades rose last year by an unprecedented 13 percent over a year earlier.

At the end of 2014, there were 136,405 Amateur Extra, 169,524 General, and 357,236 Technician class licensees — all record numbers, Somma pointed out. While the number of Amateur Extra licensees grew in each month of 2014, the number of Technicians and Generals — and of licensees overall — faltered a bit last July and September. Last year’s overall upward trend quickly recovered, however, during the final quarter of 2014. The General population also dipped briefly in May 2014, before rebounding.

Somma believes the July and September dips may have been a result of applicants’ adjusting to the new Technician question pool that went into effect last July 1. “We always expect an adjustment period when a new question pool is introduced to the public, as VEs, teachers, and candidates must prepare new study and exam materials,” she said, calling the dips “a normal part of the question pool cycle.”

Technician licensees comprise a little less than one-half of the US Amateur Radio population. As of December 31, some 51,000 Advanced and 12,000 Novice licensees remained in the FCC database. The FCC no longer issues Advanced and Novice licenses, and their numbers continue to decline.

Once again, California far and away was home to the largest number of licensees among the 50 states, with 102,806 at the end of February. Texas was a distant second, with 51,022, Florida came in third, with 40,743, Washington was fourth, with 30,511, and Ohio was fifth at 28,256. With the exception of Ohio, the licensing trend in these states has been through the roof. In Ohio, ham radio numbers have begun to flag after holding steady for about the past 4 years.

The state with the fewest number of Amateur Radio licensees in 2014 was North Dakota, with 1477, but in an overall upward trajectory since around 2009. Others with small ham populations include Delaware (1715 and growing), Rhode Island (1926 and drooping), Wyoming (1868 and headed up), and Vermont (2101 and slipping after a bump in 2013 and 2014). The numbers may go a long way toward explaining why these are rare multipliers in the ARRL November Sweepstakes and other events.

Club station licenses in the US number 11,501, according to Speroni’s web pages. — Thanks to Joe Speroni, AH0A; FCC ULS licensing statistics

 

I hate to see the confusion on basic radio topics - we might ought to try to have a "tutorial" thread or something.
No license is needed to receive.
No license is required to own a transmitter, only to use it to transmit.
Ham transceivers have outstanding receivers built in, with the capability to transmit available if you choose to get licensed (or if there's no authority left to care).
Shortwave and High Frequency refer to the same group of bands. Hams call it HF, listeners call it SW.
Your shortwave receiver can receive the ham HF bands.
With any SW receiver you can listen to ham Morse Code transmissions (hams call this the "CW" mode, "Continuous Wave").
You need a better SW receiver to get the SSB feature, to allow you to listen to hams' voice and data transmissions.
With this SSB-capable cheap receiver,
You can listen to ham voice transmissions
You can put your computer's microphone near the radio's speaker and decode fax, pictures, and "Text Message" data modes with free downloaded programs. Yes, it's not ideal but yes, it can be done. Hams can even transmit data this way, sending the computer's speaker into the radio's microphone. But of course wiring it up works better.
And the MOST IMPORTANT THING
is to start now, get that cheap shortwave receiver with SSB capability and START LISTENING.
You should not consider forcing yourself to get licensed until after you see what all the fuss is about.
If you're already interested, FINE, go ahead, but for those of you who expect to spend a few thousand dollars putting a ham radio station in storage for when TSHTF, you really need to start learning about it before you need it, because there's a lot more to it than you seem to think there is. They call it a hobby for a reason.

 

for short-distance radio, VHF and UHF, we're talking about the same frequency range where television and FM radio stations operate. If you have a police or race scanner, it receives the FM mode on all these bands (even down to 6m, although there's not much FM use down there). You can look up your local club repeater frequencies on the internet and see what there is to hear. Around here, morning and afternoon drive times are busy on the "best" repeaters, and the clubs also have "nets" at scheduled times.
There are websites and apps that can play some of these over the internet too.

You should invest the time to check out things like this as free or cheap as you can manage, FIRST, before committing large funds or effort (unless you're doing it for fun). The concept of buying ham equipment recommend by someone else "just in case" is not a well-thought-out plan.

 

heh, I just went back and followed through this conversation from the beginning... I guess back then, they were still broadcasting TV analog, so you could pick something up on the TV bands with a radio.

As to CB radio, it is a special small 11m band, right between the ham 10m and 12m bands. Unlike hams, you'd be limited to I believe 4w of power, at least legally. Hams can use 1,500 watts.
This range of bands is in a part of the electromagnetic spectrum that can be used for long distance comms only in times of higher solar activity. Since we are currently approaching the long low period (if the sun behaves as expected) between cycles, I wouldn't look for much activity on these bands for the next couple years.
There are some mysteries still, and one of them is the way the sun has been acting lately - we may be in for a much longer period of low activity but that's why they call it a mystery... we just don't know.
Anyway, all these bands are also capable of line-of-sight comms, but are not good choices for that - their antennas are much bigger than VHF/UHF, that's what they're really good for.

Before buying a receiver, see if you already have one. Even a cheap dial-tuning shortwave receiver will hear something if you clip a 20' wire to the antenna. Or borrow or find one at a yard sale or Goodwill. Just so it costs nothing or next to it, so you can start finding out what there is to listen to. And whether you care - not everybody is going to find this interesting.
There are always new models but the basics you want to look for in a "good" shortwave radio are digital tuning, an external antenna jack, and the ability to receive SSB (single sideband). If you then decide to spend a little more on a good one, look into reviews to see which ones 'hear' better.

There probably are several we could recommend if you want to spend some money and hope to keep some resale value, but you ought to try the suggestions first. I think the Sangean ATS-909 would probably be near the top of anybody's list for a portable.
eHam.net Reviews - Receivers: General Coverage

 

That's a good idea, but I'd like to see a tutorial aimed at preppers, and covering not only the gear and tech, but also the political and social parts of ham radio: where it fits in prepping, how the government gets involved, what it can be used for, etc.

Listening to Morse-code transmissions requires the same type of receiver that's needed for SSB: both "CW" and Single-SideBand receivers have to have what's called a "Beat Frequency Oscillator" (BFO) to make the Morse Code signals or SSB understandable.

There are a lot of online reviews of SW receivers, so it's a good idea to check those out before buying anything new. Local Ham clubs are a good place to find advice and help: you can find clubs with a web search, and many "old timers" will sell you an older "General Coverage" receiver for short money.

However, online reviews won't tell you the whole picture. Shortwave broadcasting has been cut back so drastically in the Internet age that you won't find nearly as many of the old powerhouse systems like Radio Moscow, the BBC, or the Voice of America these days. Most SW bands are modern-day ghost towns, and although you can still hear things like overwater air-to-ground comms from commercial jetliners to air traffic control centers, or a few fishermen and barge operators on the Maritime frequencies, CB and "Outband" operators, and (of course) ham operators - don't expect to have the choices that SW listeners enjoyed back in the 50's and 60's.

HTH.

William Warren

 

the OP was stating that he needed "a radio" and didn't know what he needed. That discussion leaves a lot of open ground, I'm not seeing where anybody is "drowning out" anything and I don't see why the equipment used by hams would not be considered "a radio".

 

One thing about amateur radio is the radios need to be learned , it's not just turning on and dialing up because many radios have special toggle through the menu to get to even listen to many transmissions.
ignorance of PL tones, and repeater sites, excludes those unaware of them .
What most folk don't understand that only hams do is, that though many conversations may not be of any personal interest, these people are also those whom you grow near to when things get tense in an event.
Knowing fellow hams and their proximity to what ever is going on, is more reliable than news broadcasters, and likely sooner than news media is capable of learning.
When I lived in the mountains ,road reports were the meat and potatoes of every day living, winter and summer ,any ham on the road shared their experience as it happens .
Fact is( in the mountains where I lived) it was more likely that a fellow ham will drop what they are doing to help another if they can .

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