We may earn money or products from the companies or products mentioned or linked to in this post.
In the event of a natural disaster such as a tornado, hurricane, earthquake, and ice storms, odds are our cell phone’s wont work, the tower’s would be flooded with traffic in the first few hours after a disaster, people trying to get into contact with loved one’s can cause the tower’s to be overloaded causing them to fail. There are alternative way’s to communicate, one I use
daily is the CB radio.
Whichever method of Communication you prefer, you will need to have a plan in place with those you wish to communicate with, as far as which channels to use and have a backup plan just in case someone else is using the same frequency/channel.
Best CB Radio
The CB Radio comes in handy for anyone working in the transportation industry. In my line of work, I go down narrow dirt road’s and long narrow driveway’s, so if I were to meet
another truck coming my way, it is a hassle. So I always call out to make sure no one is headed my way before I enter a driveway.
I also have one for my personal truck, but recently I bought another truck and haven’t had the time to put mine in. I have a Cobra 29 LTD for my personal truck, the work truck’s have a mixture of cobra’s and Uniden, I prefer the Cobra brand myself.
The distance you can reach out to all depends on the set up you have but the average is a few miles. If you plan on having a bug out vehicle, you should really consider installing a CB in it.
There are also portable handheld CB radio’s. I haven’t used these very often but they are more compact and portable. With CB’s you have 40 Channels to switch to. The channel used most often would be 19. This also depends on the area you are in. Some outfit’s use different channels.
Channel 9 is for emergency’s! Last I was aware local emergency management personnel still monitor this frequency. I myself have never broadcast on it nor have I heard any traffic come over, but if you have any type of emergency you should use this channel first, if no luck then I’d try 19.
CB’s Do not require a license to send or receive a signal.
Best low cost Amateur Radio
Another form of communication would be a H.A.M. Radio, In order to broadcast on a H.A.M. Radio, you would need to have at least the Technician’s License for Amateur Radio. But you are able to buy them without a License, you can listen, but you can not legally broadcast on a H.A.M Radio without the basic Technician’s license.
You can buy the ARRL Ham Radio License Manual with that, you can study to get your
Technician, General and The Amateur Extra. One of the Popular Hand held Radio’s would be the
Baofeng UV-5R Remember, you would need to also get your Technician’s License in order to broadcast any transmission’s on it.
I have found that with the BaoFeng UV-5R it is easier to to set and save a list of channels for my local area, or where ever I’ll be traveling too by using CHIRP software. Although there was supposed to be software that came with the radio, it would not work on my computer.
The thing about CHIRP is that it doesn’t support all radio’s in the sense. It will warn you if one is not supported, so try it at your own risk. I had that pop up when I was using it to set up my radio but I never had any issue’s.
RadioReference.com is a website I use to find the different frequencies in my area. Once you click on the link it will take you to a page like this:
From there you can click on your state then click on your county. There will be a list that you scroll down to.
Now you will be able to see the list of frequencies used in your area, and who uses them. Be sure to always mark any emergency channels as listen only when programming your radio with the computer. You DO NOT want to accidentally broadcast on emergency channels.