Communications

[nepawolf]

Just found a great reference page. For those with programmable radios who want to program in the frequencies for cbs: http://www.jneuhaus.com/fccindex/cb.htm. That being said, does anyone actually have a ham radio? I want to make sure that ham radios are compatible with cbs when programmed, before I drop 400 on a truck setup.

[nepadestroyer]

i just hooked up a base station in nepawolf's and my command center. i had to piece it togeather from scraps and salvage parts from my pa' and uncles... but, the whole thing was free...

now we are good to go. set on channal 3 as per ZRT regulations. looking foword to hearing from anyone coming through our sector....

yllw, next time you are out driving try to break in, so i can have a range test. we should have it on most of the time now. tks.

[YllwFvr]

i just hooked up a base station in nepawolf's and my command center. i had to piece it togeather from scraps and salvage parts from my pa' and uncles... but, the whole thing was free...

now we are good to go. set on channal 3 as per ZRT regulations. looking foword to hearing from anyone coming through our sector....

yllw, next time you are out driving try to break in, so i can have a range test. we should have it on most of the time now. tks.

It's a nice station. It's just never on!
I was thinking perhaps CBs could be used intervehicle and between vehicle and squad then for person to person the family band radios. I see on eBay the 1-5 mile ones are running for $5 or even less apiece. You wouldn't need the range and it would help prevent listening in. Especially if they had privacy codes.

I want to see if we can work destroyers handheld. Do you think we could rig up a bigger antenna, maybe a three footer attached to his webbing? Then a hand mike and perhaps something to boost his wattage. As is he's getting pretty much line of sight. I lost him one time within two blocks, though he recieved just fine.

[nepawolf]

i just hooked up a base station in nepawolf's and my command center. i had to piece it togeather from scraps and salvage parts from my pa' and uncles... but, the whole thing was free...

now we are good to go. set on channal 3 as per ZRT regulations. looking foword to hearing from anyone coming through our sector....

yllw, next time you are out driving try to break in, so i can have a range test. we should have it on most of the time now. tks.

It's a nice station. It's just never on!
I was thinking perhaps CBs could be used intervehicle and between vehicle and squad then for person to person the family band radios. I see on eBay the 1-5 mile ones are running for $5 or even less apiece. You wouldn't need the range and it would help prevent listening in. Especially if they had privacy codes.

I want to see if we can work destroyers handheld. Do you think we could rig up a bigger antenna, maybe a three footer attached to his webbing? Then a hand mike and perhaps something to boost his wattage. As is he's getting pretty much line of sight. I lost him one time within two blocks, though he recieved just fine.

Well, now that your CB is tuned in, his handheld should go more than 2 blocks. As far as making it go farther, their are conversion pieces to make the mobile antenna plug use a standard antenna, so if a 2 or 3 footer is strapped onto their backpack it'll go much farther. As far as boosting the wattage, a separate power supply in the backpack to produce the 12V required for many handhelds could be used to power a linear amp if SHTF.

[PirateSteve]

Does anyone have experience with smaller hand held radios that are less expensive? I was checking out a bubble-packed Motorola EM1000R that's available at a lot of different places. It seems like a pretty decent piece of equipment for the money....and I definitely don't have the cash to pick up radios much more powerful than that.

[YukonDon]

Does anyone have experience with smaller hand held radios that are less expensive? I was checking out a bubble-packed Motorola EM1000R that's available at a lot of different places. It seems like a pretty decent piece of equipment for the money....and I definitely don't have the cash to pick up radios much more powerful than that.

Pirate: check out the conversation on this thread:
http://www.pazrt.com/forum/thread-contac...-is-no-web
There was mention of some very good radios that are not real expensive.
NepaWolf wrote: "As far as handhelds go, search the term "eXRS" and check those out, they're $90 or less for the pair of the better ones and about $50 for the more basic ones. Maximum line of site range is 100 miles and they're unscannable. "

[PirateSteve]

That actually made me thing of another point:

Centers of communication should be a primary point of defense for us should the ZPAW happen. Maintaining security and integrity of large communications bases (local radio stations, tv, 911 centers, etc) would be very useful to keep things coordinated. Also, firehouses generally have good communications equipment, not to mention large zombie resistant trucks! I'm a volunteer firefighter, and all the training and equipment I've had access to would actually be pretty useful. Firehouses usually make great shelters, too.

[PirateSteve]

Very nice to have the airport close by! Even if no one can fly, the fuel supplies could come in VERY handy!

The other nice thing about the firehouses, I was thinking, is that many volunteer firehouses have beer on tap

[nepawolf]

The easiest way (short of using a handheld) is to use a remote mount CB. All of the controls are in the handmike. If you mount the main box (which tends to be rather small) in your backpack, you can power it off of a whole bunch of different kinds of batteries. Two 6 volt lantern batteries hooked up in series will give you the necessary 12 volts for a vehicle CB. This will give you all kinds of options for antennas. They're available as small as cell-phone passive repeater antennas (usually 1 foot or less long) or you could go all out and put a 102" whip on there. A three foot whip mounted lower on an external frame pack won't stick up past the top of the pack. If it's mounted on the frame rail with an antenna mount for a mirror, the nuts could be replace with wing nuts and the antenna could be moved higher for better reception easily. Most of the CB antennas with different shapes or diminutive in size tend to not be very good.

As far as the FRS/GMRS, put it in a pocket in the backpack and get a hands-free mic/headphone of some type with an external PTT button or voice activation.

ETA: For CB info, the CB Radio Talk Forum is a good place to look around. For those looking for highly amped setup help, go to competition section.

[nepawolf]

Bumping for the new guys.