Part of our Emergency Communications and Preparedness guide.
I keep running into small preparedness and mutual assistance groups (MAGs) that have solid local plans but no real way to reach anyone outside their own neighborhood if the grid, cell towers, and internet all go down at once. MAGNET is built specifically to solve that problem, and it is worth knowing about even if you never plan to join a MAG yourself.
What MAGNET Actually Is
MAGNET (magnethf.com), also known as Mutual Assistance Group NETwork, is an HF Emcomm network that connects people across the United States. MAGs come in a lot of flavors. Neighborhood watches, disaster prep circles, militias, parent groups, even food banks. What they have in common is that they are local by nature and isolated by default. MAGNET’s whole purpose is to give these groups a way to talk to each other, county to county and state to state, using amateur radio when nothing else works.
Who’s Behind It
The group trustee is K7RIE, who also serves as the point of contact. Beyond that, a large group of volunteers spread across North America act as regional support, running net control, helping new members get set up in their region, and acting as “elmers” for anyone still learning. The founding team’s stated goal was building something simple enough that a brand new operator could participate on day one, not just the experienced HF crowd. They are upfront that they are not trying to be the only game in town either. Other groups are doing similar work, and MAGNET does not treat that as competition.
How It Works
The core of MAGNET is basic HF, on purpose. Passing traffic through the network does not require a high end station. That is the entire design philosophy: complexity is a barrier to entry, and MAGNET wants to keep that barrier low. They run digital modes for the actual grid-down traffic, which makes sense since digital gets messages through cleanly in marginal conditions where a weak signal would otherwise be unreadable.
How to Get Connected
MAGNET’s site does not publish an open roster or a public join button. The way in is their contact form at magnethf.com, or reaching out through their social media. If you run or belong to a MAG and want to plug into a wider network, that is your starting point.
Their Net Schedule
MAGNET runs its nets by region. Every net runs on 40 meters at 7.115 MHz USB with a 900 Hz offset, using Contestia 4/250. The only thing that changes region to region is the day and time.
| Region | Day | Local Time | UTC |
|---|---|---|---|
| MR01–MR03 | Wednesday | 9:00 PM Eastern | Thu 0100Z |
| MR04 | Thursday | 9:00 PM Eastern | Fri 0100Z |
| MR05 / MR07 | Monday | 8:00 PM Central | Tue 0100Z |
| MR06 | Tuesday | 8:00 PM Central | Wed 0100Z |
| MR08 – MR10 | Thursday | 8:00 PM Mountain | Fri 0200Z |
Contestia is a good pick for this kind of net. It is a robust digital mode built for weak signal copy, similar in spirit to Olivia, and it handles marginal band conditions well without needing a strong signal to decode cleanly. If you are in Arizona, that puts you in Mountain time territory, so MR08 through MR10 is worth checking against your region before you show up on the wrong night.
My Take: One of the Best Nets I Have Been Part Of
I have checked into a lot of nets since getting licensed, and MAGNET is genuinely one of the best organized ones I have been part of. Net control keeps things moving, check-ins are handled cleanly, and it never feels like you are waiting around for something to happen. It is also one of the more inviting nets I have found for newcomers, and I mean that on two fronts. If you are new to digital modes, the format is forgiving enough to learn on the air. If you are new to HF entirely, nobody makes you feel like you showed up underprepared. That combination is rare.
What really sets MAGNET apart is the digital toolset they build the net around. Regions pass real situational reports over the air, in real time, the same way you would expect an EOC to want them. They also move news and updates as chat and as files, which means you get practice handling the kind of message types you would actually rely on in a real grid-down event. If you want to take emcomm seriously and not just talk about it, sitting in on a MAGNET net and working through a live sitrep or file transfer is one of the better exercises out there. You leave with real reps, not just a log entry.
Why I Think This Matters
Most emergency comms planning I see stops at the neighborhood level. Good local plan, no bridge to anyone outside it. MAGNET is one of the few efforts I have found that is specifically trying to connect those local groups to each other on a national scale, using gear most of us already own. Whether or not you ever check into their net, it is a good reminder that your preparedness plan should not stop at the edge of your own street. If you want to compare it against other off-grid HF networks, see what AMRRON is and how it works and what GhostNet is.
MAGNET is also always looking for local MAG liaisons, the volunteers who carry information back and forth between their local group and the wider network. If your MAG doesn’t have someone filling that role yet, it’s worth raising with them, and it’s a low-commitment way to get more involved in MAGNET yourself.