Let's talk COMMs....

[phill4paul]

OK, straight off, this is not my area, so I'm going to rely on knowledgeable forum members.

I'm not talking "sailfawns" here. I'm talking radio devices.

I suppose the first order is that one gets an "scanner" so that police and emergency radio frequencies can be scanned to suss out situations as they happen. I've heard Uniden is a brand that is tried and true.

What to use to communicate between a, say, seven man team within 1 mile of each other.

How to communicate with those within a 5-10 mile area? Neighbors. CB?

And at a National/World level I suppose one would have to get a HAM radio. Do you need a license just to listen or only if transmitting?

Again. Comms are not my thing. So any advise is appreciated.

[jmdrake]

OK, straight off, this is not my area, so I'm going to rely on knowledgeable forum members.

I'm not talking "sailfawns" here. I'm talking radio devices.

I suppose the first order is that one gets an "scanner" so that police and emergency radio frequencies can be scanned to suss out situations as they happen. I've heard Uniden is a brand that is tried and true.

What to use to communicate between a, say, seven man team within 1 mile of each other.

How to communicate with those within a 5-10 mile area? Neighbors. CB?

And at a National/World level I suppose one would have to get a HAM radio. Do you need a license just to listen or only if transmitting?

Again. Comms are not my thing. So any advise is appreciated.

I can tell you that you don't need a license to listen. Back in the 1970s we had a radio we bought from Radio Shack (miss that store) that, among other things, let you listen to HAM and shortwave.

See: https://hamradioplanet.com/ham-radio...ortwave-radio/

From what I've heard getting a HAM license isn't hard especially after the Morse Code requirement was dropped.

A CB radio would be good. For team chat I would want some kind of encrypted option. This looks promising.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...term=encrypted

http://ratsys.net/

[Anti Federalist]

For team comms of 0-10 miles

GMRS/FRS radios.

https://www.amazon.com/GXT1000VP4-Ch...NsaWNrPXRydWU=

For mid range distances, marine VHF with encryption or CB with linear amps.

For long distances MF marine single sideband.

I lean toward all the marine stuff not because of my internal biases, but because they are cheaper, easier to use and more common.

Just make sure they do not have internal GPS capability.