Radio Communication in Disaster

If an earth shaking catastrophe takes place, will you be able to communicate with your family? What will you do if you are on your way home from work, only ten miles from your doorstep, but you are unable to get there because of backed up traffic, closed roads, flooding, civil unrest, etc? Your family may be scared and worried but they can't get in touch with you because cell phone communication has been altered. This might be a time when you wish you had prepared by having some sort of radio backup system, say, CB radios, or ham radios. This blog gives some great introductory info about radio communication. A good place to get started.

HAM Radio

I don't know much about Ham radio, but I do know that in disaster situations it may be one of the only ways of communicating. If a group of us in a geographical area work together with only a few of us having and using a ham radio, we could work to keep the other families informed of their family members whereabouts and condition. Below are two links regarding Ham radio. They are both pdf files. You must get a lisence by taking a test in order to use Ham radio. These links help learn what you need to know for the exam.

Link 1 - practice questions for exam, Link 2- technical manual for studying to take exam