That’s what makes ham radio and ham radio operators, their numerous fans, groupies, and hangers-on so cool: it’s not only possible, it may be the only way.
Teotwawki is understood to involve zombies and/or Terminator killbots so it will be important for the pockets of uninfected humans to be able to set up ad hoc comms links. Unfortunately for ham hero hopefuls, lesser disasters don’t have system-wide failures so an area affected by wildfires or hurricanes isn’t too far from an area unaffected and, in fact, is readily reachable Starlink and other satt links if cell, fiber, cables, etc fail.
My HT also does aviation, and has a dedicated 121.5 MHz button. This is the standard aviation distress frequency. If the user knew that they may be able to get a hold of someone monitoring it.
I think there are some “standard” hurricane frequencies, but I do not know what they are.
Big difference, there: In the OP, you need to get ahold of someone RIGHT NOW. In a post-apocalypse scenario, though, you can keep on trying every day and night until you get through to someone.
And it takes a lot less power than you think to transmit around the world, at least in the right conditions.
In fact, the reason why hams are allocated a chunk of the precious spectrum is precisely because it’s a communications technology that can continue to work even when others fail. Hams are expected to provide communications during disasters.
More recently, the area around Bowling Green, Missouri (about an hour’s drive NW of St. Louis) was hit by a large tornado, and all utilities were down to the town. Ham radio operators saved the day! The tornado missed the town but did knock out the power and cell service, which was fixed quickly when the authorities knew where to send the crews.
My brother has had a ham radio license since he was a tween.
Boy, I have no clue what the cool kids use today, (the aforementioned “set up using an app” sounds about right), but as I consider my own ham radio I had as a teenager, one thing seems important:
Make a note of where all of the switches and knobs are set before you fiddle with anything.
If I bumped into my old rig (a National NCX3), it would be set to the 40 meter band, though the switch had positions for 20m and 80m. Those other positions would be useless because I had a 40 meter dipole antenna.
There was an antenna tuner–a separate gadget–so that would be a problem, but would likely be left where it was last used.
One important point: I never left the antenna connected. After a session I would always unhook the BNC connector for the antenna and attach that to a grounding strap that went outside to a copper rod my dad drove into the ground.
Besides that, my radio was capable of voice, but I didn’t have a microphone, and the ham who helped my dad set it up had tested voice transmission and it didn’t work well anyway. So it would be CW all the way.
So, your best bet is to keep everything set like you found it, and tweak one thing at a time.
Powering up the antenna would be one step that few people would figure out on their own. Prior to this thread, I had no idea that the antenna needs power. I can see why that is the case, but it’s not something I would have thought of if I was trying to get a ham radio working.
There was a ham radio in Pluribus that got me thinking about this question. They showed a Kenwood TS-940s:
There’s lots of buttons and dials on that thing. That’s lots of things to tweak for someone to try to figure out. It looks like a way more complicated than a home stereo receiver, and those can be pretty difficult to figure out. Have you ever been in someone’s house trying to figure out how to get the TV sound to come out of the stereo speakers? Trying to figure out which audio output the TV is using, which audio input the receiver is using, and how to turn the dials and buttons to get it all connected is frequently not obvious. The ham radio looks 10x harder than that. For someone who isn’t really into electronics, it’s hard to imagine how they might figure it out.
Let’s layer on the complexity here. Thinking of the home stereo analogy, for the most part, a person knows a few specifics as they engage with the equipment. “I want to play a record,” or “I want to listen to the radio.” They come with clear use case in mind.
For a ham radio, just saying, “I want to talk to someone who can help,” is not nearly definitive enough. This Kenwood can transmit on the 10, 11,12, 15, 17, 20, 30, 40, 80 and 160 meter bands. Which band to choose for a given set of conditions is a dark art. What antenna is connected (or as @minor7flat5 points out, not connected) to the unit? The antenna has to be right for the frequency you’ve selected, otherwise you’re making heat, not RF. Worst case mismatch, you pop the transistors that power the output.
Next you need to know whether to use USB, LSB, AM, FM or NFM modulation for that frequency. Possibly if you get this wrong you actually attract more attention though as some grumpy ham is irritated enough to drop in to yell at the ‘idiot’ using LSB on a USB frequency for example.
I’m not sure if a more modern receiver than that Kenwood is better or worse. Fewer buttons and knobs, but now it’s touchscreens and menus. On the plus side, a noob probably will never find a lesser used setting buried in a menu, thus less risk of an accidental knob bump on the old-skool radio. On the down side, if something does need changing, now you’re menu diving to change it.
2-meter simplex is channelized, at least unofficially.
ARRL has recommended two sub-bands for FM simplex in the 2-meter band: 146.400 MHz to 146.580 MHz, and 147.420 MHz to 147.570 MHz. Furthermore, amateur radio organizations in each state have (unofficially) defined channels within each sub-band, and the channels are usually separated by 15 kHz or 20 kHz.
Here in Ohio, It was decided channels in these sub-bands should be separated by 15 kHz. This means there are 24 channels for 2-meter simplex in Ohio: 146.400, 146.415, 146.430 ,146.445, 146.460, 146.475, 146.490, 146.505, 146.520, 146.535, 146.550, 146.565, 146.580, 147.420, 147.435, 147.450, 147.465, 147.480, 147.495, 147.510, 147.525, 147.540, 147.555, and 147.570 MHz.
The vast majority of antennas don’t need an external power source (e.g. battery, 120 VAC) in order to “work.” Most antennas are just… wires, more-or-less, and they simply connect to the back of the radio/transceiver/whatever via a cable. Now, sometimes a ham radio operator will connect an additional device between the radio and antenna, like an antenna tuner, SWR meter, RX signal amplifier, etc. And sometimes those things need to be “turned on” in order for everything to work O.K. But those devices are optional. On my base station, the only thing between the radio and antenna is an SWR meter, and everything still works O.K. even if the meter is off.
I’m pretty certain I could not even judge by looking at an antenna that is was 20m, 40m or 80m by just looking at it. And which ever I guessed would be wrong. Making sure it’s hooked up properly, getting power to it and then playing with the buttons and knobs. Not going to happen.
Sorry fellow apocalypse survivors, I don’t think I’m going to be getting a message out to help rebuild humanity. Maybe I’ll just brew beer or make a still, I’m sure I could do that if I had the time and materials. If I didn’t, then maybe I’d have a use for the radio.
Complicated by the fact that dipole antennas are often half-wave, so mine was two 10-meter lengths of antenna wire forming a T.
I remember the June day in 1980 when my dad and his friend ran that from a mast on our roof to the tree in our neighbor’s back yard.
I didn’t have an audio oscillator for my code key, so there were no audible “dits” and “dahs” as I was broadcasting, but the radio made the lights dim and made a glorious humming sound with each dit and dah, so I didn’t really need one.
And in addition, the turned-off fluorescent desk lamp by the radio would glow with each transmission, by RF alone.
How do operators contact each other in emergencies? With so many frequencies and transmission options to choose from, I can’t imagine that they’re winging. Thinking back to CB radios, there was channel 19 where most people would hang out by default. There was another channel that was supposed to be for emergencies (9?). If someone with a CB radio needed to talk to someone, they’d likely go to those channels first. Do ham radio operators have similar channels they know to go to in an emergency?
The emergency thing reminded me of a story. My friend lives in St Louis. He had a good friend in Germany whose husband is a ham operator. Husband has a ham friend also in St Louis.
There was a tornado in the St Louis area a few years ago and after that the German guy hadn’t heard from his friend in several days which was unusual. He got worried and asked my friend to go to his house to make sure he was ok. My friend went over and met the guy. He had just been on vacation.
Winging is biggest part of it, after experience. It’s a lot like fishing.
If the emergency truly calls for it, it’s usually possible to tune the radios to frequencies not normally used by amateurs like the local ambulance dispatch or the local air traffic control chan.
On a more adhoc basis, thinking of the Thomas fire in my area from a few years ago, it’s not uncommon for one of the more commonly used repeaters in an area to be operated by a local ham club, and even if that club doesn’t participate in ARES and RACES, they will almost certainly have their own plan for repeater use in an emergency. During that fire, it was a very regimented operation that had key people passing information both locally and out of the area.
Repeaters are a local solution only though. Back during the hurricanes in the Caribbean last fall, some organization I don’t remember set aside a specific HF (long range) frequency for scheduled support nets and as-needed emergency comms. The advantage of several days notice allows for some of that distributed decision making process to work.
