Secondarily that the tone of your posts indicate that you consider yourself an expert in comms and have no use for Ham radio. Am I correct in my assessment?
Double A, If I had a compelling reason to talk to somebody half-way across the country, ham radio would be my first choice.
The problem with threads like this is that the subject of the thread was CB radios, but invariably a ham will chime in, dismiss the topic of the thread, take on a condescending attitude, and say the only way to go is ham. That's when I, in-turn, take on the tone I often do. Some hams on this board imply that CBs, FRSs, etc, are all toys or only used by a bunch of yahoos. Somebody in this very thread made the remark, "Breaker Breaker Good Buddy," when I haven't heard anybody say that over the air in thirty years. And even if they still talked like that on CB, are the conversations a person frequently hears on the ham bands, such as what I heard this morning, any less silly? If I had tuned in that traffic on two-meters to show somebody what ham radio is all about, do you think what was being discussed would have inspired that person to get his ham ticket? I realize hams are very proud of having gotten a license. That's a lot more effort than just buying a CB and firing it up, so I think hams deserve privileges in terms of all the bands at their disposal and the transmission types they can use. Hams are normally very enthusiastic about what they do, and they want others to share in their fun, so I kind of understand when they say something like, "Ham is the only way to go." even though I don't completely agree.
All I ask is that when somebody says, "Here's what I need to do. What is the most practical way to do it?" that we give people good advice. Ham radio requires a certain amount of effort in terms of training, testing and observing protocols, not to mention a bit of money to get on the air. Most people are not looking for a new hobby, they just want a consumer product they can turn on and use. If they are inclined toward getting into how radios function and how to do lots of gee-whiz stuff with them, then ham radio is a fine pursuit. But if the guy says I want to keep track of my kids when they are playing in the woods nearby, it seems a bit much to tell him to get some little VHF ham handhelds, take a test, and have all your kids do this, so they can keep track of each other. It seems to me that the clear choice would be some sort of simple, cheap handhelds like FRS. And I can't help but think that a group of people who wanted to have some sort of local radio net to talk mobile-to-mobile while they are out four-wheeling or on quads will be perfectly satisfied with some inexpensive CB units.
I would much prefer it if we could all peacefully discuss what types of comm gear a prepper may want to have around. From my perspective, in a natural disaster or SHTF scenario, the first thing I want to know is what is going on around me. I can find that out by listening to as many police, fire, utility, emergency-respone, ham, etc. frequencies as are active in my area. I also want to be aware of what people might be saying on their personal communication devices, such as FRS or CB. A few years back, two planes collided in mid-air, and I knew about it way before the first responders because I picked up transmissions from a nearly hysterical antelope hunter who had witnessed the whole thing and was calling his hunting buddies on his GMRS to tell them about it. There is a wealth of information to be gathered from the airwaves, and all it involves is listening. My first bit of advice to somebody interested in communication is to get some sort of scanning receiver and get very familiar with the type of traffic you will hear so you will know how to make use of it when the time comes. It may follow, once this person really gets into scanning, that he wants something more and decides to join the ham community. But let's not push the guy into swimming pool when he first asks us how to swim!
I love radio communications. I have been fascinated by radios since I was four or five years old. When we got our first TV set, about 1954, I asked my mom how the thing worked. She told me that little pictures went flying through the air, and the antenna picked them up. I immediately went out in the yard and stared up at the antenna, which looked something like a box kite, to try to see what I thought would be a string of black-and-white snapshots going through the air in a blur and into our antenna. As I got older, I built little transmitters and listened to shortwave radios and got into CBing. I was always putting up new antennas and playing around with radio gear. On my first tactical assignment in the Air Force, the first morning of my first deployment, I helped my radio operators assemble and raise their inverted Vs, and I was ecstatic that I was actually getting paid to do something I normally did at home as my hobby. I'm not interested in arguing with people about the subject I love. I prefer to exchange ideas and help others get the type of comm service they need.
I apologize for the tone I used in a few posts.
