An Overview of Radio Communication for Preppers

(or, what radio should I carry as a prepper?)

There are not a great number of reasons to routinely carry radio comms in the UK
unless your job requires it. Mobile phones are far more useful in general day to day
use for communication. Of course, if the power goes down or the internet or cell
system is disrupted or hacked, then you could be looking at a widespread cell phone
outage.

A couple of things to remember first.

There is NO OFFICIAL “emergency channel” or frequency in the UK. People in the CB,
PMR or HAM worlds do have certain channels that they regarded as "emergency"
channels within the communities, but these channels are not regularly monitored by
any government authority or emergency service.

Marine Band Radio

The only channels monitored in the UK by anyone remotely official are the marine
VHF emergency channels. Without going into too much detail, since February 2005,
the Coastguard has NOT been required to maintain a dedicated headset watch on
Channel 16 (the marine band emergency channel).

They have the facility to do this if required, but will usually be maintaining a
"loudspeaker watch" on Channel 16 for the foreseeable future. The MCA and IMO
guidance is that vessels fitted with VHF should maintain a listening watch on CH16
where practicable.

All other radio comms available to the public are NOT OFFICIALLY MONITORED for
any emergency purposes.

Citizens Band Radio (CB)

CB probably has the biggest user base, and is "officially" at least, an HF (High
Frequency) band, as opposed to VHF or UHF. That being the case it should in theory
give it more reach during transmission (depending on conditions.

On CB, channel 9 (27.68125 MHz) is the emergency channel recognised within the
community (as said above). It's NOT monitored by anyone from the police or other
emergency authorities.

PMR446
Another radio choice is PMR446. PMR446 (Private Mobile Radio, 446 MHz) is a licence
free service in the UHF radio frequency band, and is available for business and
personal use in most countries throughout the European Union.

PMR446 is typically used for small-site, same-building, and line of sight outdoor
activities. Equipment ranges from consumer-grade to professional quality walkie-
talkies. Depending on surrounding terrain, range can vary from a few hundred
metres (in a city), to a few kilometres (flat countryside), to many kilometres from
high ground or the roof of a high building.

1 © Ian Murdoch
Amateur Radio (HAM)
You can enter the radio amateurs world by taking your foundation licence. You can
both study and take the test online. This opens up all the amateur radio bands to
you. (If you want to go this route I recommend ESSEX HAM.
https://www.essexham.co.uk/how-to-become-a-ham)

[Continued]
Conclusion
Which should you carry? Very much depends on what you want to do with it. If you
are communicating with your family at a music festival or a large caravan or holiday
park, then maybe a set of PMR radios would do.

If you intend to communicate across the world then an HF base setup with a BIG
base antenna would probably be more suited (and the corresponding Amateur Radio
licence) to transmission.

As I say, depends on what you want to do with it.

Ian Murdoch
Admin
UK Preppers and Survivalists.

2 © Ian Murdoch