6 hours agoremovelink
Get your portable solar panels, long range walkie-talkies, food, guns and ammo in order.
Shortwave radio.
A decent 50watt mobile HAM radio on Amazon is in the $250 range, plus antenna. With that you can hit repeaters if you know the frequencies.
Also, a mobile radio operates on 12-13.5 volts…car battery voltage. So you can rig it as a base station if necessary.
A HAM license is technically needed to operate on HAM frequencies, and above 1 watt. After the SHTF that probably won’t be a problem…
Any suggestions for particular manufacturers, or models?play_arrow2play_arrow
For the sake of simplicity I would just start with some FRS/GRMS radios and a shortwave receiver with a decent antenna. Really the antenna is more important. A longwire antenna or a loop depending on your noise level. Maybe then branch of to HAM stuff if interested. Listening is most of the battle anyway. Maybe get a general communications receiver that will basically be a scanner and shortwave receiver all in one. I have had a ham license since 1983. In terms of my transceiver I use an ICOM 7300 and have a icom mobile rig and a kenwood handheld. I also have a couple of cheap ***
Wind up version. One is in my bug out bag