Prep Comms - Ham Radio-Technician Privileges: What You Actually Get to Do

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

A lot of people treat the Technician license like it's a learner's permit. It isn't. In this episode, I break down what a Technician class amateur radio license actually allows you to do — and why most operators never fully use what they already have. We're talking about: What VHF and UHF are truly capable of Why repeaters are valuable but not magic Why simplex matters more than most people think Why packet radio deserves serious attention And why most Technician licenses are underutilized, not underpowered You don't need an upgrade to begin building real capability. You need to understand what you already have access to. If you've passed the test and aren't sure what to do next, this episode is for you. Ready to Go Further? If this episode clarified things for you and you're ready to stop guessing, here are the two ways I help: 1. The 30/30 Ham Radio Challenge A simple, daily plan to earn your license and actually start using ham radio. No cramming. No drama. Just steady progress. https://www.familyconnectsystem.com/3030welcome 2. The 90-Minute Communications Planning Session If you want to talk through your situation—distance, family, expectations, and realistic options—this is where we do that. No gear sales. No theory. Just clarity. https://www.familyconnectsystem.com/first-five-minutes If neither of those are for you, that's fine too. This show exists to explain the landscape, not convince anyone to walk it.

Hey, it's a prepcom's podcast. I'm Caleb and I'm recording the podcast episode live here, like in my space. So if you're watching on YouTube, you're seeing them talking about and if you're listening, you can go see it at YouTube. It's terribly incredibly boring. And you can see how much I'm really concerned about that. Anyway, hey. I'm back. It's been a little while. Still cold in the upstate, but we had a really nice fake spring for like a week.

This is the fourth episode where we're talking amateur radio, ham radio. And I wanted to get into the privileges as a technician. Now, we just had the big, last episode was the big talk about when we're talking about the test and got some thumbs up and I got some thumbs down and all that. It's fine either way. But you've got to take a test to become a technician. It's the first. test that you have to pass. You do have to pass them concurrently. So you can't just come in and take the third level of exams. You have to take the first test as a tech. You have to pass it. And upon completion, either that sitting or whenever you choose, you can go take the general license exam, which is the second level. You pass that one at the same time or the next time you want to test.

You take the third level, which is known as extra. Back in the day, there were a lot of different levels. So anyway, there's just three levels now, technician general and extra. I'm a general class licensee. Two reasons I'm not an extra. One, I'm lazy and I don't care a whole lot about the minuscule amount of privileges that are available with an extra license. And two, I don't have to be known as an extra to feel good about myself, although some people are and do.

And it just doesn't matter to me. I don't have the time to study for that. It's the smallest bit. So I'm not going there. I may one day. I'm not saying no. I'm just not going to do it right now. Anyway, so if you're unawares, all right?

The technician class licensee holder has some privileges within the amateur radio hobby. And for a lot of people, it's all they really want. Now, it is an entry level exam. It is an entry level license, but it doesn't mean that it's weak or underpowered or what's the use or I immediately have to get the general, things like that. So it's really probably the most underused license in the hobby, in the set of three that are out there. And here's the reason why. A lot of people get their technician license and they never progress. And they only know what they have seen or had experience with.

That is the, I don't have one in here, the Balfeng radio for 16 bucks on Amazon. And they take that and they get on their repeaters. And they talk to a couple of ham club guys and realize, hey, this is really not for me. I just have 16 bucks and a radio and maybe 30 or 40, bucks in the test, I'm done, and they bounce. And here's the reason why is because they don't understand, and you may be listening and

not understand, the power that your technician privileges give you. Now, the reality of the license is, yeah, it's limiting. I like to say it like, think about your technician license as a license for your region, okay? So with a technician license, let's just say in South Carolina, I can talk a right. the upstate of South Carolina into western North Carolina, maybe into northeast Georgia from where I'm at,

with a technician license pretty easily with the local repeater systems. There's other things I can do, but we're just talking just, you know, just the periphery here. But a lot of guys don't know that there's a lot more you can do with your technician license, like get on HF radio with Morse code,

or maybe on 10 meters HF or six meters HF and make contacts at distance. So both of those, 10 and 6, can be used regionally. I will grant you that. But they can also be used for DX, which is long distance contacts, or maybe even coordinating your buddies around if you want to do something a little different than the typical 2 meter walkie-talkie. The thing that a lot of guys don't get, and it's just it's inherent in kind of the draw that the hobby brings,

the people that come into it. A lot of folks that come into amateur radio nowadays, see that you can get a walkie-talkie on Amazon for $16 or so dollars and think that that's all you should have to spend. Hey, James, hadn't seen you in a while. They think that's all you have to spend. They think that it is anything beyond a six, $16 walkie-talkie is too much. It's asking too much. It's too expensive. It's not worth it.

They don't understand why they should have to pay more for anything, whether it's a better walkie-talkie or a mobile radio or maybe a nicer antenna. There's a lot of questions people have. And there's a lot of misinformation, a lot of bad information. Let's just be frank. In every aspect of our life, there is bad information out there. I'm not trying to sell you anything here. I'm just trying to help explain, you know, what it takes. So one of the, one of the most important tools that an amateur radio technician license holder has is the ability to use the VHF and UHF frequencies allotted within Simplex operations. And Simplex, as we've talked before, it's simple minus the X, you know, simple. You get the ability to talk radio to radio station to station. And every bit of this requires you

to have a good antenna. How many times have you heard me say antennas are very important. You can't get away from that fact. Elevation will make your good antenna even better. I want to encourage you to always remember elevation and antenna, antenna, and elevation. Those are the game changers in every aspect of every band of this entire service. Okay.

Like we've talked about for everything before we got to this point, it's all antennas, it's all elevation. then it's feedline and then it's your radios. Okay. So Simplex is station to station. Honestly, let me just lean up here. If you're not using Simplex for amateur radio communications, you're missing out. Now, some of you may be GMRS users and you're like,

oh, I talk on my walkie-talkie to my buddies walkie-talkie. That's Simplex. And now with GMRS, you can have 50 watts. That makes a really big difference. With amateur radio, you can upwards to 1,500 if it's required. But I found that with a decent antenna and a 50 watt mobile radio with 30 to 50 plus feet of elevation, you can talk all around your area Simplex.

No repeaters needed. So preppers coming into the hobby and they're like, oh, man, I'm worried about an EMP. I'm worried about power going out. I'm worried about backup power. all that stuff. And I get it. I get it. I'm not trying to get away from that just to share that, hey, not everything is doomy. Okay. And I understand that you want to be prepared. I'm that guy, but we're not talking doom here. We're just talking about, hey, let's make it work while it's working. So one, a lot of people focus on repeaters, and that's great. Maybe one of the negatives you may find

in ham radio is the repeater, although it's an incredibly powerful and extremely helpful. tool, it can be a problem because a lot of repeaters in the amateur radio hobby are kind of territorial, may I say. And you'll find that they're not just territorial because that's where they are located. You may find that some clubs may or may not like new people to use their radio repeaters. Now, I'm just being honest. I've not experienced that here locally to a great extent, but it does happen. And I've seen it locally to the point that sadly, our local amateur radio club, at least the hierarchy or the guys that have been there longer or the long guest or, you know, the more seasoned individuals have decided that they, for the most part, will forego using

the local two meter repeater and go over to the 220 megahertz repeater to prevent themselves from having to talk to the newbies or however you want to describe them. Now, I'm not that guy. Although I don't turn my radio on enough, I'm very happy to talk to new people. I'm talking to seven new people live right now. So that's me and my personality, and I understand not everybody has that personality. You may not have that personality. You may not want to talk to new people.

You may want to just talk to your buddies. And if you're 79 or you're 27, it doesn't matter. I'm just making an example of what I've seen here. So don't let the repeaters scare you off. And don't let it prevent you from getting your license either. I'm not saying that's nationwide, worldwide. That's how everything always is. There's a lot of good people in Ham Radio.

And those are the ones that you don't hear a lot from. The ones you hear a lot from are the ones who aren't the nice people. And that's why when you get online or you read comments in some of these videos or somebody scowls at you on the air, those particularly are the strange birds themselves. Now, we call them lids in the hobby. You can call them whatever you like. Just don't say the negative bad words on the air,

but it's real. I'll give you that. And you may find some of that on the repeaters, but don't let it dissuade you from utilizing your privileges as a technician license holder in the amateur radio hobby. Now, repeaters are great. We've talked about them ad nauseum. Do we really have to talk about them again?

I don't want to. We've talked a lot about Simplex, you know, back in the FRS, GMRS, MURS services. Just want to touch on it right here in the amateur radio section for the technicians because I think my gut tells me as well as my email inbox tells me that a lot of new hams don't understand the extended reach and the capabilities Simplex radio gives you with your FM. two meter radio. Now, let's just be straight. Your $16 Balfeng, Pofung, Wuxon, whatever, handy talk you will only do so much, even with great coax, even with elevation, and even with a great antenna. You'll be surprised what it can do with those three things,

but if you connect a full power, and I consider full power from 25 to 50 watts, because that's pretty much what's available nowadays, you're going to be shocked. You can be absolutely shocked at what you can do without a repeater. And more than likely, there's a lot of guys who have their amateur radio license. And I'm saying, guys, if you're a lady, I'm not not speaking to you. A lot of folks have their license. And maybe they've never tried Simplex. Or maybe they've tried it with their walkie-talkie in the yard at ground level and just

got so disappointed because they couldn't talk to anybody, Simplex. but they were using a, gosh, this is a GMRS, but they were using a nothing antenna trying to connect to somebody at ground level. And so the physics tell us that's not going to work. All right. Now, you can try to push your way through with a 50 watt radio with a nothing antenna at ground level and you might get a little more performance, but it's still not going to be anything like you want to make a contact with.

So I want to encourage you, if you're a new technician, and you can not to put yourself in a spot. I'm the guy that's like if you have to wait to buy stuff, I get it because when I got in, had five little kids, one income, we didn't have any spare change, okay? So maybe you stumble into a good deal, maybe someone at the club, share something with you,

whatever, get a mobile radio. Neither put it in your car or put it in your house with an external antenna and then see what you can do with Simplex. 146.520. is the frequency to use for Simplex in the United States of America. It's called the national calling frequency, 146.520. A lot of times you'll hear people say dot 52, and that's what they're referring to. It's the Simplex frequency for technicians or whomever.

Well, you hear a lot of traffic on there if you'll put your radio on the frequency and listen. That's the thing. A lot of people say, I never hear anything on the calling frequency. and they'll tune by once every seven days at 8.30 in the morning and stay there for three and a half minutes. Might be worth trying. I also hear, and I've done it as well, I drove from South Carolina to Dayton, Ohio, and made one contact on Simplex. Yeah, well, I did that, and I did make one contact just outside of Dayton my first year going in. actually the second year going in, we were driving, made one contact from South Carolina to Ohio, calling on the national calling frequency.

It's just what it is. But here's the deal. If you're looking to make contacts and you don't want to be part of the repeater scene or maybe you've got that down and you as a prepper want something a little more, less dependent on someone else's infrastructure, give Simplex a look. It's awesome. It's awesome. It really will shock you what it can do.

Now, the thing about the repeaters, we know that they give you coverage. They do require power. Of course, they got to stay going. And they work like a champ until they quit working. I also can speak from experience there with our friends at our local club. Hurricane Helene comes in. I got the little mini-colum set up in the living room of the house. The wind's blowing 60 miles an hour for like four hours that day.

And the repeater was working great until the repeater site lost power. Poof, it was gone. It took us two days to get somebody to get the backup repeater working at a different location. But it happens. Luckily, there were other repeaters in the area. We could use them in chat. But most everybody was so busy, excuse me, just trying to survive the aftermath of the storm down here. We weren't necessarily worried about what our buddy was going to do because the golden corral was closed.

So don't put too much, I guess all this is to say, don't put all your eggs in the repeater. basket as a technician. There's a lot more to what you can do. Excuse me. And looking at this, I don't even know that we're going to have time to go through the whole thing with just one call because, man, there's a lot you can do. So, yeah, repeaters are great, but also learn how to use Simplex. Simplex is going to be great for you if you have a bunch of elevation or you have a great antenna with some elevation and a full power radio. Okay. For instance, a friend of mine, an Elmer, Gary, K-8, H-I-D, lives 45 minutes up the interstate from me, almost in the North Carolina. Back in the day, I had an 11-element directional antenna on the top of my barn at about 20 feet.

I pointed it at Gary's house. He pointed his at me, and we could talk like it was an intercom on 2-meter FM Simplex. It's great. That's a long way to go. Very long way to go. but the antenna made the difference and the power definitely helped. All right. So again, elevation and antenna matters.

You've got to have those. You've got to have that in place. Which leads me to my next point, digital and packet radio for the technician. Now, don't fret. I'm sure there are plenty of videos out there if you want to talk about slow scan TV, moon bounce, EME, all these different things. Amazon, whatever. All these other things.

I'm talking about practical application for ham radio inside the preppers fear. Got it. Okay, so let's talk about digital and packet radio because technicians had the ability to do all of this. Okay, let's talk packet radio. Very simple. It's ones and zeros, this old school ones and zeros before there were ones and zeros from way back in the late 70s, early 80s.

And your radio connects to a device that, connects to your computer and you're able to type a message, the device makes it encodes it with some beeps and squawks and squills, and it transmits over your radio. There are other stations that are listening for beeps and squawks and squills. Their device, their radio receives it, their device decodes it and gives you that message on the screen. And you're thinking, oh, he's talking APR.

That is one way to do packet radio as a technician operator. It's not the only way. And actually, packet radio is much bigger than APRS. APRS is a version of packet radio. Is it the easiest way to get started in packet radio? Probably, most especially in 2026. Maybe not back in 2014, but in 2026 APRS is your easiest way to get in to packet radio. Now, here's the deal. Doesn't mean that you have to just look at a map and see people

driving around. We utilize APRS around here for the messaging capabilities. It's really robust. I built a bunch of digipeters where we live. I may be talking above your head, so stick with me. But there's different nodes throughout our county that I put up in here and around there, and they're able to bounce the messages around and get them to the operator on the other end. as well as you can see where people are on the map. You can see their weather conditions. It's just if you want to learn more about APRS, go check out Jason KM4ACK,

maybe the number one guy, in my opinion, on where to go and learn. Plus, he's easy enough to understand. All right. So packet radio is more than APRS. And what we're doing now locally is we're going way back to before APRS to just the dry bones packet. So before the internet,

there was a thing that folks used called a BBS, a bulletin board service. And for instance, if there was a bulletin board service between you and I, I would send a message to the bulletin board service directed to you and the bulletin board service would hold on to it until you came by and said,

hey, do you have any messages for me? And the service said, yeah, matter of fact, Cal sent you want. You can go in there and pull that down and read it and reply, post it up for me, next day when I decided to get up and check online again, I'd get in there and I check the message that you sent me the reply. The great thing about that is it's Simplex, but it uses nodes. You can direct your message to get even further than just your local area, and it works

great. It's very robust. It's very old school. It takes a minimal amount of equipment, which we're not going to discuss here. Matter of fact, let me refer you to the tech prepper. Gaston did a great service, a great teaching series, I should say, in regards to packet and BBS working. You can do that over HF as well as VHF and UHF, but this is not the place for that. I'm not the guy. I'm just explaining the possibilities for you. So check out the tech prepar and KM4ACK. They can both educate you in those regards.

Here's the thing. the packet radio service, the service of packet radio inside and with your technician license will give you and your compatriots, friends, fellow mag group guys, whatever you want to call them. They'll give, it'll give you a way to communicate without having to speak. It's a very robust service so that at a point that your voice may not make it through, the packets may make it through, and then you can pass method. messaging there. It's very fast to send and receive a packet message. And again, it doesn't take a lot in 26 to make it happen. I'll go so far as to say right over there are two brand new UV50 pros from

BTEC. I've got three now. I love them, by the way. And they're going in my wife and my daughter's cars. And the reason I put them in there because the microphone is basically the radio. But at any time I get in either of those vehicles, I have the ability they do too with their technician license, have the ability to send and receive messages with the radio through the radio without having to speak to anyone. Also do Winlink, email, all these sorts of things, guys. But here's the deal. I want to talk to prepper into things, but I'm not trying to make it do me. So just bear with me for a second. Let me see the best way to say this. You hear a lot about mesh-tastic, right? And you can do that with an amateur.

radio license up to, gosh, I can't even remember maybe 50 watts or something. I can't, there's, there's a certain level of power that's afforded to, UHF transmissions for data like that with the amateur radio license as a technician. But there's not a lot of people on those frequencies because everyone that's doing meshtastic are doing it in a 900 megahertz band and enjoying the encryption and all that. And that's great, especially if, you live in an area that has a concentration of that service. Now, this video is not about mesh-tastic. I'm not here to beat it down or tear it up. I mean, I've already tried it. It

didn't work, but I live way out away from everybody, and it takes a lot of brute power to get my messages to someone else because of someone else's that can get and receive, and I want them to receive the messages live, you know, 45, 50 an hour and a half away from here. So we have no mesh-tastic infrastructure here. So we have to use a higher power, an older school kind of method and what we end up with is packet radio. But if you're watching the mesh-tastic videos, Coms Channel, Mad Gearco, if you're watching those videos and you're, you're comprehending what they're teaching you about the mesh radios and how they pass the messages along, that's basically packet radio for 2026 with ultra low power and ultra high frequencies.

That makes sense. So if you've got an idea about what meshtastic or mesh core or whatever that is for you, if you understand that, that's packet radio from back in the 1970s. And some of us where we live are better suited to use the packet radio, then we are the mesh core, mesh-tastic, and those different types of brands. I've dropped a bunch of names. I probably need to put those in the show notes,

but it was KM4ACK, the tech preparer, and the comms channel, and Mad Gearco. So make sure you check out all those guys. They can help you with these different things I'm talking through today. I'm not getting in the weeds. I don't have time for all that. So for me personally, as a technician license holder,

in the preparedness realm of things that we're talking about here. I would definitely want to encourage you to one, spend time with Simplex. Get your head, get your equipment around operating Simplex. And that's going to allow you to utilize the digital modes and packet a lot easier and more efficiently than without it. So digital, the packet stuff, is Simplex. Okay. So if you have a good Simplex station. No, I'm not an extra. I'm still just a no code general. I think it's what we used to laugh about, but I've never taken the test, not even given much time to the study, James. I'm responding to comments, by the way, if you're curious, if I'm just rambling off to some random, random voice

in my head, back to packet radio is Simplex. So if you can work out Simplex for a voice, you'll be able to crush packet radio on two meters or four-fort. So for me personally, if I'm using my technician privileges, I'm a general, but if I'm using my tech privileges, I'm learning to focus on the digital and the packet end of things. And the reason being as a prepper, those are the most robust and least infrastructure-dependent modes that you can operate on outside of just Morse code, single sideband. But most people don't have either of those equipment or the training for that. Packet radio is very easy to establish, especially again with the GMR or the UV50 Pro radio from BTEC and the WOD app or whatever airmail or whatever it is for iOS users.

Here's the deal. Simplex radio and packet. It's the power that you don't even realize you have. And people are like, well, I'm not even trying to do that. That's fine. You don't have to. but for me it's so incredibly powerful. We use it every day.

And I've got more stations coming online because it is that powerful. And anyway, so gosh, I'm already, I've exceeded my time and I'm not even a third of the way through the list. Technician class license holders. Your license is enough. Okay. I don't want you to think that, oh, because I'm just a lowly tech, I can't do anything. I've just got this stupid walkie-talkie.

I can't talk to anybody. The local ham club guys are mean or whatever. No, no, no, no, no. You can build a very strong, redundant, and resilient system locally for you and your like-minded friends with technician licenses. Okay. So you and your buddies, I'll get your tech. Y'all can build a crazy strong communication system that doesn't have to depend on anybody, right?

Now, we'll get down to the HF and stuff later when we talk general and extra class. But here's the deal. If you're a prepper, you want to be able to make strong communication links to your fellow like-minded preppers. And you don't want to be dependent on a repeater, whether it's GMRS or, you know, amateur radio club powered. Then you guys need to really focus in on Simplex and digital type packet modes. Okay. I got a lot more to talk about. I just released a new book yesterday.

And it's about how I almost crashed my family, thanks to prepping. I'm still a prepper, but I don't even like that word. But if you want to check it out, there's a link in the show notes, as well as maybe you've watched this and it's live, so it hadn't been great. I apologize. But maybe you've watched this and you're like, you know what? I would really like to have the capacity Caleb's talking about. and I want to get my amateur radio license.

There's a link in the show notes below. It's to my free 30-30 challenge. Basically, I help guide you through how to get your license. I'm not teaching you. I'm not providing a service for you to be able to do that. I am offering you daily encouragement. We're checking in with you. We're making sure you're good.

We're showing you where to go, how to go, what to use, how to get ready for your test, where to go take your test, all those things are in there. It's free. It's the links in the show notes, the 30-30 Ham Radio Challenge. I've gotten a lot of great results.

Since I've introduced it to everybody else, my son used it, and he got his license. So anyway, I hope you guys are having a great day. Thank you guys who have joined me live. Again, shout out to James. You know, here's the thing.

Let me just, I'll throw this in since James is here in the chat. Man, this was back in the photo. time 360 days. It must have been 360 at that point, but it was a field day. And I went to the local Ham Radio Club field day, which is an event that anybody can attend, anybody can go. And it was at a fire department up in town. And the ham club had gotten there and we'd set it, you know, set everything up, we're ready to go. And this guy comes in, a big tall guy. And I'd never seen him before. I didn't know who he was. And he introduced himself as James. And James was there. We had a good time.

we were hanging out talking the podcast and APRS and ham and all this stuff, you know, and it turns out James was at the time, he was a truck driver and he had stumbled into, into the podcast and found himself at our local, our local here in South Carolina, he's from California. He stopped by our local field day event.

It was great. It was awesome to meet him and catch up. He got, had a great time eventually got his license. He's on the air. He was a mobile operator's a truck. truck driver when he was driving. So anyway, I just say that to say this is a very small world with a lot of good people in it. And no matter. Okay, so this is one YouTube guy talking to

another YouTube guy. No matter what someone else on YouTube has told you, this guy on YouTube is telling you that there's a lot of great people involved in this hobby. There's a lot of great people. Not everybody sucks. And there's a, the majority of us want to see the hobby grow, the service grow to be able to help other people, whether you are a prepper or not, or whether you want to talk over satellites or, or whether you're just interested in having a hot spot and doing voiceover IP with a walkie talkie. Or, you know, maybe you want to go up and start talking on HF and make worldwide contacts and chase DX stations and, or maybe you want to go to the park like HOA ham radio guy. I mean, you know, maybe,

just pick something. There's so much to do. But here's the deal. We all want to see you do well. Because one or two people had a bad experience. Don't let that be your bad experience. I mean, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't want to. I've been doing it since 2014.

Talk about some opportunities to have some bad experiences. I've had plenty of them still going. And I'm encouraging you if you have the knack, if you have the desire, if you need the best backup communication system available for someone who considers themselves a prepper, then I've just explained it to you. It's ham radio. All right, guys, I'm going to go twice as long as I meant to go. I apologize on behalf of all of you sitting through this, but I wish you well.

Hope you have a great day. I've got to find the stop button around here somewhere, and we'll see you next time. God bless 73.