Ham Radio & Survival Communication Class, Volume 1

Hi Everybody, Frank here.

Well, Folks, I did something last night I haven’t done in four years. I actually taught a class. Except this time, it was a group of adults, and this time, my clientele was not a group of teenage prisoners. They weren’t high school, public school kids. You know, prisoners. This group extended from probably about 19 to, I’m going to say, 65 years of age. We had some laughs, which remember, Humor is the Essence of survival. 

Our local emergency management director spoke for a little while at the beginning. I invited him, I wanted to thank him for providing us with the materials that we used. This also provided him the opportunity to address some of the needs of the local folks where they live.

We started off by using the Romanchik, KB6NU, new Technician’s manual, which is a great way to help get the Technician’s license. We got into the very basics of it, the first few pages of the manual. This deals with E = I x R and P = I x E. You see folks seem to think that you have to learn a lot of formulas, but you really don’t. I showed them a couple of shortcuts that actually work.

Then we did a little show and tell. I showed a handheld, which in the ham world called an HT, which is a handy talky, and the non-ham world is called a walky talky. 

I took the radio apart, which means I took the battery and the antenna off, and showed them the three basic components of the radio system. These are the basic components of any radio system, which are the battery/power supply, radio and antenna. For demonstration purposes here, I am using a Wouxun radio, which is a $120.00 radio. The Baofeng radio above is the $35.00 radio.
 

Then I showed them how you could eliminate the battery, with a gizmo called a battery eliminator. It plugs in where the battery would normally go, and has a coiled cord coming out the back that connects to your lighter plug/power port. Now you can connect to that big battery in the car. 

Then I connected a magnet mount type antenna that attaches to the roof of your car and with an adapter plug, connected it to the port where the removable antenna was. 

Wa-la! Now you have a radio that has an external antenna with a much greater distance, and a much bigger power supply that is renewable as long as you have fuel for your car. 

Then I connected a hand microphone to the radio, so now there is a full functioning 5 watt, dual band radio. This can be used for GMRS, MURS, ham radio, police, and fire frequencies. This is a very capable little radio. The cool part is the Baofeng radio itself costs about $35.00. The external antenna is about $20.00. The battery eliminator is about $10.00, and the antenna adapter is about $10.00. You do the math. You can have a full functioning, UHF/VHF system for under $100.00. That includes the microphone, too. If you don’t need all the stuff for your automobile, for $35.00 you can have a fully capable, handheld, UHF/VHF radio. Folks, you just cannot beat a deal like that. You can also listen to the weather on it. You can even listen to the railroad frequencies on it. You can listen and communicate on the marine band frequencies, if necessary. And you can also listen to FM commercial radio. An unbelievable deal.

In an emergency, like a natural disaster, you can talk to your neighbors down the road. If you can talk to your neighbors down the road, then you can also know when the bus is coming to round people up for free rides to the FEMA camp. You know, where the government will take care of you.

These little radios will also provide you with communication while your children are outside playing. If you’re interested in getting your ham radio license, which is real easy, and you’re carrying one of these $35.00 radios, and you get real lost while you’re out deer hunting, there are few places in this country that you cannot reach a ham radio repeater. Just food for thought.

Overall the class went well, had a real good turn out of about 25 people. Some there are not interested in getting their ham radio license, and that’s great. Some folks there just wanted to improve their communication skills. Well, folks, I know most of you don’t live in my neighborhood, but I encourage you all to give serious thought to improving your communication skills, because, just look around, seriously look around, there are hard times just right around the corner. We are going to need to communicate, local and long distance, but it starts local. Every community has some type of ARRL radio club. Go on their website and find a local club. Learn how to communicate using radio. $35.00 is a real inexpensive insurance policy.

We are going to meet five or six more times, and the whole purpose of this class is to eventually get people communicating, because that day is coming, maybe real soon. I’m not going to play head games with you, like there are biker zombies coming. But, for whatever reason, if we need to shut down our community, and people have even 10 minutes notice that there is something bad coming down their road, then they can at least be out of their house and away from the carnage that could be coming. This is the purpose for this class. The whole purpose for this class is to help save my life, and then my family’s lives, and then there is the domino effect. It will spread. We have got to be able to communicate. Please wake up.

We’ll talk more later, Frank

Visit Thoughts From Frank and Fern at http://thoughtsfromfrankandfern.blogspot.com/