Part of our Emergency Communications and Preparedness pillar
I get asked some version of this question constantly. Somebody buys a radio, maybe two, and then asks what they should actually put in the memory channels for when things go sideways. The honest answer is that most people either program way too much or way too little. You don’t need every repeater in three counties. You need a short, deliberate list you can find in the dark, half asleep, with your hands shaking a little. Here’s what I keep programmed into every radio I own, and why.
NOAA Weather Radio, All Seven Channels
This is the one nobody argues with. Coverage varies by which transmitter is closest to you at any given moment, so I program all seven instead of guessing. Here’s the full set:
- WX1: 162.400 MHz
- WX2: 162.425 MHz
- WX3: 162.450 MHz
- WX4: 162.475 MHz
- WX5: 162.500 MHz
- WX6: 162.525 MHz
- WX7: 162.550 MHz
If you travel with your radio, having all seven programmed means you’re never hunting for the right one during a tornado warning at 2am. Most handhelds have these preloaded or at least labeled WX1 through WX7, but I still go in and confirm mine are actually mapped to the correct frequency instead of trusting the factory defaults.
The Ham Simplex Calling Frequencies
146.520 MHz is the national 2 meter simplex calling frequency, and 446.000 MHz is the 70cm equivalent. These are radio to radio, no repeater required, which matters a lot when the infrastructure is the thing that failed. I don’t expect to have a long ragchew on these. I expect to make contact, confirm somebody is out there, and move to a pre-arranged frequency if needed. Every radio I own has both programmed as standalone simplex channels, not buried in a scan list.
HF Frequencies Worth Monitoring
If a real regional event knocks out repeaters and cell service both, VHF/UHF only gets you so far. This is where HF earns its keep, mostly through NVIS propagation that covers a state or region without needing a repeater at all. You’ll need a General class license or higher for most of these. Here’s what I keep noted for HF:
| Band | Frequency | Mode | Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 80m | 3.905 MHz | LSB | Common regional emergency net frequency |
| 80m | 3.818 MHz | LSB | AmRRON / prepper net primary |
| 40m | 7.240 MHz | LSB | Common regional emergency / ARES net frequency |
| 40m | 7.110 MHz | LSB | Regional ARES/traffic net calling frequency |
| 40m | 7.242 MHz | LSB | AmRRON 40m voice primary |
| 60m | 5.332 MHz (Ch 1) | USB | National interoperability channel (2.8 kHz bandwidth) |
| 60m | 5.348 MHz (Ch 2) | USB | National interoperability channel |
| 20m | 14.300 MHz | USB | Maritime Mobile Service Net / global emergency net |
A couple of corrections worth flagging since a lot of the frequency charts floating around get this wrong: AmRRON’s actual 40 meter voice primary is 7.242 MHz LSB, not 7.293. And 60 meters is channelized, not free-tuning, so you can’t just dial up 5.332 MHz on your VFO and transmit. You select Channel 1 as a named channel, run USB only, and stay inside the 2.8 kHz bandwidth the FCC allocated for it. Check your radio’s manual for how it handles 60m channelization before you actually need it.
GMRS Channels
GMRS earns its spot because it’s the one service your non-ham family members can legally use with a single license that covers the whole household. I keep the 22 GMRS/FRS shared channels programmed, along with the eight GMRS-only repeater input/output pairs in the 462.550 to 462.725 MHz range. Channel 20 (462.675 MHz) is the de facto national GMRS calling and emergency channel in a lot of areas, so that one gets a dedicated slot instead of sitting in the middle of a scan list where it’s easy to miss. If you’re setting GMRS up from scratch, I cover the license, real-world range, and which radio to buy first in our GMRS Radio: The Complete Guide.
MURS, the Service Everyone Forgets
MURS doesn’t get enough attention. It’s license free, VHF, and the five channels (151.820, 151.880, 151.940, 154.570, and 154.600 MHz) tend to propagate a little better through terrain than GMRS does. I use MURS as a neighborhood or property channel, something separate from the ham and GMRS traffic so I’ve got a dedicated line for close-range coordination that isn’t competing with everything else.
CB Channel 9 and Channel 19
I’ll be honest, I don’t reach for CB often. But channel 9 (27.065 MHz) is the recognized emergency channel, and channel 19 (27.185 MHz) is what truckers and road crews actually monitor. If I’m broken down or need to flag someone down on a highway, this is the one piece of gear a random stranger with a CB in their truck is most likely to be listening on. It’s not about elegance, it’s about reaching whoever happens to be nearby.
Civil Air Patrol and Aviation Search and Rescue
These two are worth having programmed if your radio does AM mode and airband, mainly for situational awareness rather than routine use:
- 121.500 MHz: the International Aeronautical Emergency Frequency, monitored worldwide for aircraft distress and ELT signals.
- 123.100 MHz: the designated scene of search frequency, used as the secondary SAR channel once contact is made on 121.5.
Both are legitimate, FCC-recognized frequencies, and monitoring them is fine for anyone. Transmitting on them is a different story. These are reserved for actual aircraft in distress and licensed search and rescue stations, not general use, so I treat mine as receive-only unless I’m the one in the emergency.
Your Local Repeaters and Nets
This is the part I can’t do for you, because it’s specific to where you live. Program your two or three most reliable local repeaters, especially any that are tied to ARES, RACES, or a local emergency net. Find out what night that net meets and put it on your calendar, not just in your radio. A repeater is only useful in a grid down situation if it has battery or solar backup, so ask around at your local club about which ones actually stay on the air when the power goes out. That’s the repeater that earns a spot on your list. If you want the fuller picture on ARES, RACES, and building out a real emergency communications plan, I cover it in our Emergency Communications and Preparedness guide.
How I Actually Have Mine Set Up
On my AnyTone radios and my Kenwood TH-D75A, I keep this whole list in a dedicated zone I labeled something obvious like EMCOMM, separate from my regular repeater zones. That way I’m never scrolling through fifty memories to find channel 20 or 146.520 when it actually matters. If you only do one thing after reading this, do that. Build one zone, put these frequencies in it, and actually test that you can pull it up in under ten seconds.
None of this replaces knowing how to use the gear. A perfectly programmed radio in the hands of someone who’s never kicked a repeater or made a simplex contact is just an expensive paperweight. Program the list, then go use it before you need it. And if you haven’t mapped out how all these pieces fit together as an actual plan, that’s exactly what our guide to building a PACE communications plan for grid-down scenarios walks through.