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.
