Has anyone explored alternative communications in case of shutdowns and emergencies? More detail in the attachment. Is anyone familiar with this plan? It is mostly promoted to sell 2-way radios, but it feels like a solid "worst case" plan if enough people followed it. Awareness must come first, of course. Are there competing plans out there? Better plans? This one seems to be aimed at preserving battery life for example. Are there any alternative communication systems? I don't mean the 11 meter 27 Mhz "hillbillies yelling at each other" band. Not only is it pretty useless to anyone aside from rubes who like to yell to hear themselves, it would probably be an obvious conduit for delivering propaganda at low cost simply via overpowered transmitters playing a tape on a loop. I was thinking of digital relay, a sort of widespread mesh network. An alternative to Internet access when it goes down or is co-opted. Probably low-speed transmission of plain text stored on distributed servers. Few images or other bulky media like audio or video. People could browse newest info nationally and for their region or State, request searches by keywords, etc. or even file reports much like posting to a forum thread here. It could even use a browser-base user interface. Compressed HTML can be almost as bandwidth thrifty as plain text when used in the original minimalist fashion.
Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa So very low data rates but low power requirements for long distances. Relays are part of the specs. Perhaps the geolocation could be suppressed in "friendly" gateways, or maybe that is actually a useful characteristic to help validate broadcast "bulletin" messages?
Once they get through with the cities, they will be headed for the rural areas, so not sure how much to prepare. Water containers would be good.
My son who now lives here in Alabama has several short wave radios, and he has some set up that he can take out in the woods (or wherever) and use. He would be the one who would do any coordinating for us, but we do not have a radio to communicate with him; so we would have to use a text message, assuming that cell towers were working.
I wonder whether direct, unrelayed GMRS or MURS might be a solution for your "last mile(s)" between you and your son? He'd probably be right on top of any answer to that. I mention them because the equipment necessary is available, compact, relatively inexpensive, and simple to use and for many they are more practical today as a replacement for what "CB" radio used to be decades ago. They can also be used now for the communication tasks they are good at. They just aren't very useful for non-local communication beyond maybe 50 miles under good conditions of terrain and interference. In a true SHTF scenario many of the rules are suspended for emergencies, and if really bad enforcement goes away anyhow. Image a guy with a shortwave listening post, maybe including some LoRa SHTF bulletins network. He could broadcast updates via GMRS using a really good antenna and tons of people could receive those using $30 down to $10 FRS walkie-talkies from Walmart since many of the channels overlap. FRS is power and antenna limited, but receiving a strong signal still works. Maybe some members here are radio amateurs or members of REACT or other CB radio emergencies organizations? I'm sure they'd have good information and suggestions to share.
I have NO idea what most of that means, @Jacob Petersheim , but I am sure that if i sent the post to my son, he would understand it completely and have an intelligent response for you. Actually, my son, his wife, and both of his sons are licensed ham operators, so in case of any kind of country wide catastrophe, he would be able to keep in contact with his family. I think that @Denise Evans was going to get a ham radio book and take a class to get her license; but I do not know if she has started that or not. Another possibility might be @Martin Alonzo , who lives in the Dominican Republic (and is Canadian), because he was living on his sailboat for several years, so would have radio experience. This is my son’s gadgets out in his garage.
I think everyone should have some sort of communication alternative, even if it is just for listening. Some localities allow for the use of scanners and such to find out what is happening locally and some places do not allow that. Inexpensive scammers or Baofeng radios are available for that purpose, and the radios will allow direct communication with first responders, which, under normal conditions is illegal. Some prepper channels recommend storing the actual numbers to your local police, fire and EMS on your phones, as the 911 and 999 systems are frequent targets of hackers even if the cell towers and phone systems are still operating. Easy-Peasy and costs nothing. Most people won't want to invest in Ham systems, but some will. A small 2-meter system like the aforementioned Baofeng radio can be useful to monitor local Ham traffic and repeater frequencies in your area. GMRS and FRS are okay but somewhat limited in their usefulness in a real emergency. My wife in participating is an "Expo" here that is designed to inform people about resources available in their area. Look for similar things where you are located. If you really want to get into stuff, you can buy one of the big, general coverage HF sets that cost significant money and a license to operate in transmit mode during "peacetime". They can always be used for emergencies and listening. After all, do you want to talk with Germany or California if you need help in Vermont? Listening sets can be obtained inexpensively but the transmit functions are much more expensive. Listening is also "license-free" under all conditions.
I suppose I was interested in things that are legal to use under normal circumstances without any high expense or need for training. Also less likely to be suppressed or even confiscated in many worst-case scenarios. Listening isn't regulated very much in the U.S. and probably Canada but in other parts of the world this isn't (or wasn't always) the case. But my top concern is: cell phones dead, Internet dead, local radio and TV dead or continuing to spew pap or even news you can't verify. Now what? Where might you turn?
Assuming satellites are still functoinal, sat phones are fairly reasonable, there are 4G and 5G handheld radios that use cell towers. Shortwave is an option providing power and antennae.
We have a couple of solar chargers that we can use to keep our cell phones charged up, and I do have a scanner that picks up the local police channels that my son brought over for me to use. When we had the bad tornado here and electricity was out for almost two weeks, we still had cell service (to some extent) after the first 24+ hours, because some cell towers still worked. There were so many people trying to call that calls just didn’t go through, but a text message takes just a few seconds, so we were able to communicate with family and let them know we were okay with our cell phones. We can connect to internet with our cell phone hotspot, unless the whole internet is not working, but would not have regular radio or TV news if there was no power. If something happened that was so bad that nothing worked, I guess that we would just try to keep our phones charged with solar, and wait it out until there was some communication restored. That is what we did after the tornado, and there were not even any emergency vehicles out for over 24 hours because roads were blocked with trees and debris. I would probably be able to reach my son with a regular CB radio because he only lives a few miles away from us. Pretty sure he would have an extra one I could use if things start to look bad.
In the spectrum of nasty scenarios though don't a non-zero fraction of them involve the action of corrupt or co-opted government and/or industry? I agree that if the phones stay on we at least have person to person communication. But what about access to the outside world and trustworthy information about what's going on, preparations to take, where and when relief can be expected, contact with any resistance, and such?
Are they different than a two way radio? We have two short range radios to use if one is out of easy hearing distance.
I'm thinking that pole mounted CB antennas could be easily hidden amongst trees, in state/federal parks, if not attached to them that would extend range depending upon the testicular fortitude of anyone placing them strategically. I must admit I am not currently up to speed concerning hertz, megahertz and frequencies unless they are applied to Rife machines LOL
If everything was falling apart, there are portable antenna systems and even how-to-build info available to address stealth. Probably good enough for any Red Dawn scenario, and certainly anything less. Specific radio technology knowledge background should only be required of those planning, constructing and operating network hubs, broadcast sites, etc. If anything, simplicity and simple "appliance operation" would be necessary for the general public or even defense auxiliaries to make productive use of a system. Simple mnemonics like "3-3-3 Plan" go a long way too. I like to see at least a primary system based on legal equipment and legal use today. That would permit drill and practice well before any need, helping to ensure success if the time comes. A secondary system overcoming the limitations of legal operation today could be a backup or even a backbone for civilian emergency information and communication via such a primary system.