Category: Preparedness

  • Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alerts: How They Work, and Ham Radio’s Role

    EAS and WEA are not the same system, and understanding both tells you exactly where ham radio actually fits in.

  • Grab and Go Box: 2m/70cm Family and Emergency Comms Kit

    Part of our Emergency Communications and Preparedness Why I Built This Box I wanted one box I could grab on the way out the door that would let my whole family stay in contact no matter what’s going on. Not a bug out bag, not a full station buildout. Just a self contained kit that…

  • What to Actually Store in a Faraday Cage: A Realistic Radio Gear List

    A realistic, budget-honest list of what to actually shield in a Faraday enclosure: how many handhelds, which HF radio, antennas, batteries that survive storage, and the paper docs that matter more than people think.

  • How a Nuclear Blast Impacts HF, VHF, and UHF: Lessons from Operation Starfish Prime

    What Operation Starfish Prime actually showed about EMP, and why HF, VHF, and UHF each fail (or survive) for different reasons after a nuclear blast.

  • Setting Up a Neighborhood Radio Watch Program

    Part of our Emergency Communications and Preparedness guide. Your own household’s comms plan only covers your own household. A neighborhood radio watch extends that same resilience to the people physically closest to you, which is exactly who you will actually be relying on and helping during a genuinely local emergency. Start With Who You Already…

  • Building an EmComm Go-Kit Inventory You’ll Actually Update

    Part of our Emergency Communications and Preparedness guide. Every go-kit inventory starts out accurate the day you build it and slowly drifts out of date as batteries get swapped, gear gets borrowed, and expiration dates quietly pass. The fix is not a better one-time inventory. It is a system low-friction enough that you actually keep…

  • CERT and Amateur Radio: How the Programs Overlap

    Part of our Clubs and Nets guide. CERT and ARES get confused for each other constantly, and while they are separate programs with different scopes, they overlap enough that many hams find real value in doing both. What CERT Actually Is Community Emergency Response Team training is a FEMA-backed program that teaches civilians basic disaster…

  • The FT-857D as a Shack in a Box: Why It’s One of My Favorite SHTF Radios

    Part of our The Yaesu FT-857D: The Complete Guide. One Box, Every Band You’d Actually Need When I think through what a grab-and-go radio needs to do in an actual SHTF scenario, the list is short: reach the local repeater network, monitor and work HF for anything past line of sight, and do it all…

  • Your Comms Plan for Every Disaster Scenario

    Part of our Emergency Communications and Preparedness pillar I have written about a lot of individual disaster scenarios on this site, and I kept hearing the same thing: people wanted one place to find all of it instead of hunting through a dozen separate posts. So here it is. Every scenario-specific comms plan I have…

  • What Is ATAK (CivTAK)? Tactical Mapping and Team Awareness Explained for Hams

    Part of our Emergency Communications and Preparedness guide. If you’ve spent any time in EmComm, SAR, or preparedness circles lately, you’ve probably seen the acronym ATAK thrown around next to phrases like “situational awareness” and “common operating picture.” It sounds military because it is military, but the civilian version has quietly become one of the…

  • MAGNET: A Nationwide HF Network for Mutual Assistance Groups

    MAGNET connects Mutual Assistance Groups across the US over HF, using digital modes for grid-down comms. Here’s what they do, who runs it, and how to reach them.

  • The Frequencies Every Ham Radio Should Have Programmed for SHTF

    The exact frequencies I keep programmed into every radio I own, from NOAA weather to GMRS, MURS, CB, and ham simplex calling channels, so I’m never scrambling to find them when it matters.

Categories

×