Communication in a post-SHTF world

eth0

Walkie talkies, CB and ham radio would seem like an obvious choice but could leave you exposed to authorities and people wanting some place to rob. Depending on how much traffic there is and how remote you are even sending an encrypted signal would give away your location.

Unless you're using something very low powered and not transmitting voice in an area where you're almost certain nobody would pick up the signal you could be in trouble. Even then someone could be pointing a dish at the place scanning for transmissions. So you'd have to make a custom transceiver running on some uncommon frequency that would only send a few characters at a time and encrypted with a one-time pad

For communication between watch posts and the like wired communication can be used easy enough like that guy in the American documentary but digging the cables in is a bit of a pain.

One time pad encryption will be handy after the SHTF. Can be used over any medium and if done right the only encryption that can't be broken unless someone finds the 'pad'

Doc Ruby

That's a bit more like what you'd have to worry about if running an insurgency against a tyrannical government, I'd say. In the event of a major catastrophe very few people are going to have the time to go scouring the countryside with a fine tooth comb looking for every stray radio signal when there are no doubt a lot of juicier targets to be had. Worry about smoke from your fires or lights at night if you must.

I mean unless someone is stopping every 5 miles to scan all frequencies for staccato and infrequent bursts of random radio traffic, which you won't be using anyway unless you're on the move or engaging in agriculture, in which case the presence of fields will be a much bigger flag advertising your presence.

Lone or small groups of dug-in and lets face it, probably heavily armed and capable, survivalists are going to be low down pretty much everyone's priority lists for one reason or another.

krissovo

The only real options are messengers and wired point to point. These are still used by even the most modern of forces. Wire for relatively short distances and messenger when its impracticable or likely to be breached by spys.

I once had a demo from the Royal Signals on "Direction Finding" or as they call "DFing". They had two mobile units and were tasked to located a soldier who only had a PRC 349 (Very small radio) on its lowest power setting in hilly terrain. They only knew the lad was within 50 miles and he would transmit irregularly.

At the lads first transmission they had a bearing where he was located, at the second they had a area roughly a mile square. At his third transmission they had him within 10 meters and sent a section to flush him out. Yer man did relocate so it took his 4th transmission to actually catch him.

kildare.17hmr

yeah if your really trying to stay off the grid messengers are your only real option for communicating at distance. But in this country i wouldn't think there would be many people searching for signals, or am i wrong??

Grizzly 45

[

QUOTE=Doc Ruby;75580130]That's a bit more like what you'd have to worry about if running an insurgency against a tyrannical government, I'd say. In the event of a major catastrophe very few people are going to have the time to go scouring the countryside with a fine tooth comb looking for every stray radio signal when there are no doubt a lot of juicier targets to be had. Worry about smoke from your fires or lights at night if you must.

Second that.About the noise and smoke,and lights.As for comms nowadays you can get encrypted two way handsets or handset base for under 600 euros.But it is still wise never to talk long on air in clear talk anyway.Scanning ,well unless the bad guys be they brigands have a super ham radio/comms guy with them and all his equipment is up and running.He is going to have to be pretty good to catch a few radio clicks or a five second or less transmission,triangulate and locate it to a position.
CBs while having a breif flourish and renassiance here in the 1990s.Are considerd in the US a viable alt means of day to day communications for people without phone or internet.So much so that FEMA has plans to use it in the event of a national disaster situation and have a designated channel for disaster comms ..Channel 7.:cool:
wonder would our PTB ever consider this here,or will "nothing will happen" thinking still prevail.

Lone or small groups of dug-in and lets face it, probably heavily armed and capable, survivalists are going to be low down pretty much everyone's priority lists for one reason or another.

Maybe in the USA or elsewhere ,but not here in Ireland.Thanks to our wonderful gun control laws!:mad:.Those kind of groups are exactly what remnants or capably led by ex special forces or SWAT style police units would ideally prey on.A survivalist group is NOT a military unit,no matter how fancy all your gear is and how well dug in you are.You are not going to get afood and ammo resupply convoy or a MED vac chopper flight out if you are in a firefight and someone catches a round.Your best option is to be like a gurellia unit which means be ready to move out at a moments notice,have all your stuff well camoflaged and be very quiet and hunker down if the above type units are in your area.

Grizzly 45

krissovo wrote: »

The only real options are messengers and wired point to point. These are still used by even the most modern of forces. Wire for relatively short distances and messenger when its impracticable or likely to be breached by spys.

I once had a demo from the Royal Signals on "Direction Finding" or as they call "DFing". They had two mobile units and were tasked to located a soldier who only had a PRC 349 (Very small radio) on its lowest power setting in hilly terrain. They only knew the lad was within 50 miles and he would transmit irregularly.

At the lads first transmission they had a bearing where he was located, at the second they had a area roughly a mile square. At his third transmission they had him within 10 meters and sent a section to flush him out. Yer man did relocate so it took his 4th transmission to actually catch him.

A PRC349 isnt exactly starte of the art ...:pac: Its Korean war vintage or thereabouts.They might as well have given the poor sod a Clansman and detected him with a bean can coupled to a transistor radio.:D

But your point is valid DF will get you IF it is available,IFthere is somone looking badly enough for you and especially IF you abuse radio procedure.
IOW radio is not there for big long yaks about how your feet hurt or whatever.Its there for vital short comms.

Later..
Forgot to add ,people have also to understand what you are saying too in your messages.The US used Navaho Indians in ww2 as their radio operators.The so called "wind talkers".The Japanese were never able to break the US transmissions as no one in Japan spoke Navaho.
So maybe your group might want to consider learning some obscure Yiddish dialect or somthing that will confuse or slow down your enemies listening and decyphering.

Doc Ruby

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Those kind of groups are exactly what remnants or capably led by ex special forces or SWAT style police units would ideally prey on.

My thinking was, there are probably an abundance of easier targets to pick on, you don't need to be hard, just harder than the next guy. If they are going after you for political reasons that's a different story.

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Your best option is to be like a gurellia unit which means be ready to move out at a moments notice,have all your stuff well camoflaged and be very quiet and hunker down if the above type units are in your area.

Agreed.

waterfordham

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

[

Second that.About the noise and smoke,and lights.As for comms nowadays you can get encrypted two way handsets or handset base for under 600 euros.But it is still wise never to talk long on air in clear talk anyway.Scanning ,well unless the bad guys be they brigands have a super ham radio/comms guy with them and all his equipment is up and running.He is going to have to be pretty good to catch a few radio clicks or a five second or less transmission,triangulate and locate it to a position.

I completely agree. Proper procedure and liberal use of codewords would hide a lot of what persons were communicating about. Frequency in use would also effect any attempt to DF someone (you don't need specific DF'ing equipment to DF someone btw).

I guess it mostly depends on intent of both the 'defender' and 'attacker'. If I'm motivated enough and I'll find you eventually, though I'm a bit rusty at the moment

For inter 'compound', what I would do would be to stick to shortwave bands, antennas low to the ground (NVIS mode i.e. make it look like a wire along the top of a fence). For local stuff, between groups of houses, CB or low band VHF (with antennas in attics). For tactical, something on UHF with a minimum of voice inversion/digital encryption of some sort. But the intention is the key.

irishlostboy

wow. paranoia city here. lol. lets say in a real shtf scenario; no crazy spec-ops led harrier gangs, not saying it would not happen, but just to open more options in communications. say we have no sat como. we are left with what options? HAM radio, CB, VHF/UHF handheld dealies, and the channel locked civi hand held dealies. any option i have missed?
now i guess we need a pro/con list for each.
one issue which needs to be brought up is licencing. ok, the world has gone into meltdown and we are all on our tod, it is not an issue, but to learn how to use these toys you need to learn them BEFORE your dooms day scenario right? so it is important to know that broadcasting outside of certain frequencies and above certain wattage needs licencing. so has anyone more specific information regards getting a HAM radio operators licence here?

Tabnabs

A useful (and somewhat more realistic) scenario might be mobile signals are out of action and due to a SHTF scenario your family need to get home ASAP but you can't use the regular channels to communicate with them. What then?

In our case we all have marine VHF training and licensing and have a set at home and I usually have one in the car, but this could be extended if things started to look iffy. A handheld set has "line of sight" range, but it's a simple job to increase that with a fixed aerial (two spare in the shed ).

Grizzly 45

Tabnabs wrote: »

A useful (and somewhat more realistic) scenario might be mobile signals are out of action and due to a SHTF scenario your family need to get home ASAP but you can't use the regular channels to communicate with them. What then?

In that case I wouldnt be worring about comms,but rather that each family member knew a drill on where to meet up with you at a central point and if you wernt there at two alternative RV points.
Of course you will have to modify each plan depending on how far each one of you is from your homebase.

Tabnabs

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

In that case I wouldnt be worring about comms,but rather that each family member knew a drill on where to meet up with you at a central point and if you wernt there at two alternative RV points.
Of course you will have to modify each plan depending on how far each one of you is from your homebase.

And with comms we can modify and clarify without worrying about alternate RV points. Time would probably be imperative and faffing about moving from one RV point to another would certainly compromise safety and security.

Grizzly 45

irishlostboy wrote: »

wow. paranoia city here. lol. lets say in a real shtf scenario; no crazy spec-ops led harrier gangs, not saying it would not happen,

The situation you dont plan for is usually the one that WILL kick you hard in the ass.:p

Grizzly 45

Tabnabs wrote: »

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

And with comms we can modify and clarify without worrying about alternate RV points. Time would probably be imperative and faffing about moving from one RV point to another would certainly compromise safety and security.

What happens if one of your radios of your group is looted,smashed,confiscated or otherwise knocked out???Or worse your whole system goes down due to EMP hit??[One thing all radio comms etc will be seriously bollixed by]
KISS and rules of three apply especially to bug out plans.All comms and mechanical things have a failure potential,usually when you expect it the least to happen..
Its a nice extra and a help but I wouldnt base my entire get out of Dodge plan on just one system.

Tabnabs

Back up and more back up.

Agree re. KISS and have alternatives (EMP is highly unlikely in the greater scheme of things and handy enough to counter - http://www.aussurvivalist.com/nuclear/empprotection.htm)

But alternative RVs is not a working plan IMHO. Get together and then move as one group.

irishlostboy

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

The situation you dont plan for is usually the one that WILL kick you hard in the ass.:p

if we have high tech super pirates lead by spec-ops guys i would rather be found, shot and get it over with. internet SAS fantasies are just not my thing. :rolleyes: there are enough likely problems down the road to worry about.

kildare.17hmr

irishlostboy wrote: »

if we have high tech super pirates lead by spec-ops guys i would rather be found, shot and get it over with. internet SAS fantasies are just not my thing. :rolleyes: there are enough likely problems down the road to worry about.

Then why are you posting here?:rolleyes:

Nothing wrong with preparing, even if nothing ever happens that you need to bug out or go on the run alot of the info in this forum is useful to alot of people here. Hikers, hunters, people who like to go camping, people trying to be self sufficient its all useful. Plus practicing these things is fun

Fantasies, hopefully they stay that way but it makes for good conversation!

Grizzly 45

Err I think thats Irishlostboys rant not mine..

Guess he hasnt heard about such occurances as Ruby ridge and Waco then either.. While technically not survivalists re they were branded such as by the media,and more intrestingly if either had proper comms to the outside world the stories of both of those tragedies might have been a tad bit different...

Of course that might be just all fantasy too to some..:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

But I think there are alot more people out there who have real world experiance in law enforcement and military who consider this a viable threat.But of course thats in the gun mad survivalist nut world of the US,and Somalia and Croatia and Serbia.

kildare.17hmr

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Err I think thats Irishlostboys rant not mine

Fixed that quote

Doc Ruby

Tabnabs wrote: »

Back up and more back up.

Another important thing is knowing how to use your kit in multiple ways. Take 550 paracord for example, its a solid rope, but seperate out the strands inside and you have a fishing line, sewing thread, snares, and so on.

Norwayviking

One important thing also is the morse code.easy to learn and can be used in many ways

krissovo

Norwayviking wrote: »

One important thing also is the morse code.easy to learn and can be used in many ways

I learned in my military days and got up to 15/20 words a minute, the hardest thing is keeping the skill. I gave up 10 years ago and after reading this post had a go at decoding 10 words a minute as there are loads of online resources. I failed miserably!

Norwayviking

krissovo wrote: »

I learned in my military days and got up to 15/20 words a minute, the hardest thing is keeping the skill. I gave up 10 years ago and after reading this post had a go at decoding 10 words a minute as there are loads of online resources. I failed miserably!

Yes same with me,but you have to keep at it to really get the hang of it,but you will be surprised in a survivalsituation how fast you will remember it again.:D
Its all down to practice.;)
Even in my daily work on ships(down in Brazil at the moment),we still have to learn to use the morsecode and the old sextant,allthough we have MF\LF Radio and satellite phones and GPS to help us with communications and navigation.;)

Grizzly 45

Same with pilots..You can have a cockpit full of ,GPS, Loran,etc.That will work 99% of the time andthe plane virtually flys itself by computor.
But you are still taught how to use a whizz wheel,and dead reckoning for the 1% of the time when it will go down.

Same with scuba diving.I've a dive computor that goes just about everything bar making the tae.But I still know how to read a decompression table.

We rely too much on black box technology these days.Its great ,until the batteries are flat.:(

waterfordham

krissovo wrote: »

I learned in my military days and got up to 15/20 words a minute, the hardest thing is keeping the skill. I gave up 10 years ago and after reading this post had a go at decoding 10 words a minute as there are loads of online resources. I failed miserably!

Have a gander at www.lcwo.net. Keep the character speed at 20wpm, but drop the effective speed to whatever you are comfortable with.

krissovo

waterfordham wrote: »

Have a gander at www.lcwo.net. Keep the character speed at 20wpm, but drop the effective speed to whatever you are comfortable with.

Nice tool, just signed up and had a play. Amazing after a few goes I can wind the speed back up a bit.

ShadowFox

How about for basic and cheap way to get messages around using a set channel on the PMR network as HAM radio needs a licence If there was a set channel on PMRs people can pick them up cheap and pass information between each other in local areas ?

eth0

grapeape wrote: »

How about for basic and cheap way to get messages around using a set channel on the PMR network as HAM radio needs a licence If there was a set channel on PMRs people can pick them up cheap and pass information between each other in local areas ?

PMR446 is the first channels baddies will scan when they're looking for people hiding out

ShadowFox

eth0 wrote: »

PMR446 is the first channels baddies will scan when they're looking for people hiding out

Im not talking about hiding out im talking about floods Snow Ice things like that
As for Hiding out its a small country getting more and more built up every year you will be found hiding behind your sofa very quickly lol

waterfordham

grapeape wrote: »

Im not talking about hiding out im talking about floods Snow Ice things like that
As for Hiding out its a small country getting more and more built up every year you will be found hiding behind your sofa very quickly lol

Fair enough, but I'm not sure that counts as post SHTF? For floods/snow/ice. Depends on terrain. PMR446 will die quite quickly in hilly, or vegetation covered terrain. That said, I always carry two with me in my car. The venerable old CB is probably a better bet. More power and, consequently, range with it.

ShadowFox

There are very few that have or use CBs these days there are even very few shops selling them