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  • School Pickup and Lockdown Communication Planning for Families

    Your family plan can’t replace the school’s plan, but it can fill a real gap once phone lines jam up.

  • Essential HT Accessories: Speaker Mics, Cases, and Clips Worth Buying

    Part of our Handheld Radios (HTs) guide. A handheld radio straight out of the box works fine, but a handful of accessories make it dramatically more comfortable and practical to actually carry and use day to day. Here’s what I’d prioritize. A speaker mic changes how you carry the radio A remote speaker microphone lets…

  • AREDN Mesh Networking: Building a Ham Radio Internet

    AREDN turns cheap off-the-shelf routers into a high-speed data network that runs entirely over ham radio frequencies, no internet required. Here is how the pieces fit together.

  • What Is a Spurious Emission, and Why Should You Care?

    A spurious emission is any signal your transmitter puts out that it should not. Here is what causes them, why they matter, and how to keep your signal clean.

  • Buying a Used HF Radio: A Model-Agnostic Buyer’s Checklist

    A used HF radio can be a genuinely great value or a slow-motion money pit, and the difference usually comes down to how carefully you check it before handing over cash. This checklist applies regardless of which brand or model you’re looking at. Before you meet: research the model’s known issues Every radio model has…

  • The 3-3-3 Radio Plan: A Simple Plan for SHTF Communications

    Every 3 hours, for 3 minutes, on a pre-agreed channel. The 3-3-3 Radio Plan is one of the simplest, most memorable schedules in prepper radio circles, and it’s worth understanding even if you tweak it.

  • Choosing a Scanner for Situational Awareness During an Emergency

    A scanner is input, not output. Here’s what it actually buys you, and why digital trunking makes this harder than it used to be.

  • What Is PSK31? The Original Low-Power Digital Chat Mode

    Long before FT8 took over the digital segments of every HF band, PSK31 was already doing keyboard-to-keyboard chat over weak, narrow signals. Released by Peter Martinez, G3PLX, in 1998, it’s still around today, and it’s worth understanding even if you never plan to make it your primary mode. How PSK31 actually works PSK31 uses phase-shift…

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