Prep Comms - Let's Start Talking

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

After nearly a dozen episodes, Caleb finally gets around to talking about 'talking'. That said, he still remind us about the importance of listening. Preppers talking on radios should be more than just a handheld radio from Amazon passed around the neighborhood and we're preparing to go deep on the topic-stay tuned. The conversation goes from listening to talking with a hint at the upcoming series: CB Radio's for Preppers!  Get your copy of Caleb's free and recently updated eBook CB Radio For Preppers: A How-to Guide to Get On The Air before the Apocalypse: Here Visit our Show Sponsor: Hub City Mercantile   Thanks for listening! Caleb Nelson/ K4CDN

Hello and welcome back into the PrepComs podcast. My name is Caleb Nelson, your host here for the show. I'm an amateur radio operator and I have been for well over a decade now. And my amateur radio callsign is Kilo 4 Charlie Delta November, or K4 CDN. Just so happens that the Charlie Delta November is the initials of my birth name. So Caleb David Nelson, Charlie Delta November. I picked that call. It's a vanity call sign, and we'll talk about that at some point in the future. But I picked that call sign just out of haste to change my original call sign,

which was Kilo Kilo 4 Bravo Romeo Mike. I was not happy with that call sign. Looking back, I mean, I don't know that it was a terrible call, actually. And now that, you know, I prepared a study for my extra, I'm studying for my extra exam and have the opportunity to change my call again, which, you know, you can do at any time. I don't think I'm going to. I think I'm just stuck being Charlie Delta November.

So it's okay. It's real easy to say for me after having, you know, had it for 10 years. But either way, that's a little history about me and amateur radio call signs. And this episode, it's not going to be about amateur radio, but we are going to kind of shift into the momentum of talking in regards to communications for preppers and not just listening. But I want to, before we get there, I want to, I want to make this point to encourage you. If you haven't listened to the first 11 or 10 episodes, whatever it is, I want you to go back and give it a listen because you need to know how to listen, especially if you're

a prepper and you're trying to figure communication stuff out. One of the things you may not realize that, and I talk about this in all the previous programs, is that you really need to know how to listen and what to use to listen, depending on what you want to hear. And I know that sounds kind of silly and belaboring the point, but the reality is it's great to be able to talk to your buddy down the street. It's great to keep up with your kids when they're out in the yard. And I'm not against that at all, most especially for someone in preparedness and in a situation that they've been preparing for.

But I think you'll find that in most cases, listening to what's going on around you is equally, and I'm going to say even more important than knowing your ability to talk to somebody at that moment. Unless it's a life or limb situation, most of the time, listening is going to be all you need to be doing. And that's why I spent such a long time talking about listening devices and what to use to listen and why you would want to listen in that regard and why you'd want to listen over here to this frequency or why you don't utilize this tool to listen to this band or something. There was a great reason behind that. And it's funny, but so many of you have asked, when are you going to teach us how to talk?

Well, I'm not here to teach you how to talk. Okay, I'm going to try to help you make some good decisions on what to use to talk to some folks. And that's all going to depend on your situation and what you're trying to do, your end goal. And that's kind of what we're going to talk about in this particular episode. What is your end goal? I mean, you get on Facebook, I get messages on Instagram, you know, people are wanting to talk to their brother in Georgia from central Pennsylvania. That's not impossible, by the way, but it's not a walkie talkie from Amazon. That's not going to fix it. There was a question on Facebook the other day, you know, like, how can I talk to my daughter? She's in California and I'm in Idaho. How do I talk to her if the internet quits working or the phone stopped ringing? That's doable.

That's very realistic, but it's not going to be free, meaning it's not going to be free for money and it's not going to be free from time and it's not going to be free, meaning it's not going to be free for money, and it's not going to be free from time, and it's not going to be free from effort. And that's one of the things that I think a lot of folks in the preparedness sphere, in this realm of preparedness, I think a lot of folks don't realize that to do these sorts of things, you have to put something in more than just 20 bucks, more than just a $30 receiver, more than just a $200 shortwave radio to listen to. If you're going to want to talk to somebody, here's my rule of thumb. The person you're trying to talk to is going to want to talk to you as bad as you want to talk to them. And they're going to have to be willing to make the same investment to talk to you

as you are to talk to them. Let me give you a for instance. Let's say you and your daughter are about, I don't know, 180 miles separate from each other. But you're worried about talking to your daughter in case of a collapse or an EMP or a hurricane or tornado, I don't know, just pick some situation and you want to talk to your daughter 180 miles away. Well, sorry, those walkie talkies you see that'll talk from here to Alaska. I wouldn't put my faith in those other than to maybe, you know, hold a piece of paper on a windy day. You need to have the capabilities to talk over high frequency, which is also like the shortwave radio we've spoken about, talking on those frequencies. And that, in the United States of America, would require you to become an amateur radio operator, a general class.

And it would also require your daughter to do the same thing. And she would have to have equipment that would be able to talk to your equipment and vice versa. And that's a big turnoff for a lot of people. The first turnoff in regards to amateur radio is having to take a test. And we'll talk about testing later, but the questions still remain. How far can I talk and what is it going to cost me? I hear that all the time. And I have found that people really don't want to spend a lot. And most people are not interested in the time that it would take to make that happen. Now, I'm not even talking about the time that it would take to get your amateur radio license. I'm talking about the time it would take for you to get your handy doggie from Amazon, make sure your programming is correct, make sure your buddy's programming is correct, and then hand him his, and you have

yours, and you guys see how far you can talk. Most people don't even do that. Most people just order something, they automatically assume that it's pre-programmed to do whatever they want it to do, and some of them are, but the majority of them are not. And then they just throw them in a bag or put them in an EMP box or something and just wait for the world to collapse where they'll use it, you know, with complete knowledge at that point. And guys, that's a very, very stubborn spot to be starting from. And again, that was one of the reasons I started this program.

There were so many questions that were being asked. And a lot of the answers that folks were receiving were good answers. Others were just off the wall and crazy. But the thing is, in regards to communication, you have to invest yourself. I don't know. Are you a shooter? Do you enjoy sports shooting or clay shooting or maybe deer hunting or bird hunting? You know, you don't

just go to Cabela's and buy a shotgun and never clean it, never rack the slide, never do anything with it, and then prepare to go out on the first day of dove season and, you know, and come home with a limit. I mean, that's not necessarily realistic. You know, if you're a target shooter, you don't go down to the local sporting goods store and buy a.22 Plinker, put it up in the closet, and then, you know, expect to come out and win an award at your local gun club next year without having ever shot the rifle. And it's really no different than that. Or maybe you do dehydrating food and you buy the Excalibur and you just take a tomato and slice it to a million pieces and throw it on the tray and put it in the Excalibur and turn it on.

And you've not even adjusted the settings or understood how any of that works. You just think, well, I've got it. That's all I need. I just have to have it. And it's an American thing. I mean, honestly, it's the first world Americanized problem we have as a society. And that is, we don't have to pop popcorn anymore. You know, I'm old enough to remember. Yes, I'm that old. Jiffy pop on the stovetop. You know, it took a while. Now it's two minutes and 12 seconds in the microwave. You have a nice fluffy bag of popcorn that took two minutes versus 20. And it, I don't know that it's just as good, but maybe it was better back as a kid because we had to wait so long for it. But anyway, I digress. The deal is communications is like everything else. It's just like a sport. It's just like a trade. It's just like a hobby. The more you do it, the more you practice, the more you give it, the better you're going to be. And folks are like, I'm not trying to be a radio operator. That's okay.

You may not have to carry that or you may not be in that position, but someone near you needs to be that guy or that gal. And that's, again, what this program is for, to help those folks get their stuff lined up. Now, you can listen along and learn a lot, and you may find that you're interested in this stuff after all. But again, you're going to have to prepare yourself now. And that doesn't mean buying things. I can tell you what to buy. I can give you a list. If you tell me where you live and how much money you have to spend and who you want to speak to and how far away they are, I can give you a dollar for dollar list. I can create a whole package for

you that would be a turnkey product. And I mean, if that's you and that's what you want to do, and that's all the effort you want to put into it, hit me up. I'll fix you up. We'll come up with something. We'll do a one-to-one and we'll get you figured out. But if you really want to know why and how and what and make the good decisions on your own and gain some knowledge in the process, stick around. I mean, neither way is wrong. One way, it's just going to cost you more money than time. The other way, it may cost you more time than money.

What do you want to spend? So communications, again, is not hard. But listening, I'm telling you, the good Lord gave us two ears, one mouth. We should listen twice as much as we speak. And that goes for life in general, especially in marriage, especially with children, for them to listen to us. At work, you know, all these different ways it shows itself up, and even in emergency communications. So we've had a hurricane come through not too long ago. We've had another one that was tempting to come in and has gone off the

other way now. But there's a lot of talk, a lot of chatter. There's ways to listen to that stuff going on there. What about storm chasers? You know, the only one that really needs to be talking on the air when there is a tornado on the ground is the guy who can see it. You know, it's one thing for the guy to, to be able to, to track it in his car and he's following it and he's given coordinates and direction and travel and et cetera. Um, me over here listening to that, I don't need to call and say, Hey man, uh, uh, have you seen any flying cows? Does Helen Hunt still have her tank top on? Is it a red Dodge? I mean, I don't need to ask him those questions. I need to be listening so that I can understand where the storm is and how to make plans and preparations and moves if I need to do that in regards to my family or my own personal

safety. And that's kind of a poor example, but really that's how simple that is. It is really that simple. The guy who sees the tornado, who's tracking with the tornado needs to be the one talking at that time and nobody else. Everyone else needs to be listening because of the storm or the event or the issue or the problem. So they can understand what they need to do to take care of themselves. And everybody likes to talk. I mean, I'm a podcaster. I've been podcasting for over 10 years. I was in radio for 10 years before that. I'm not a very good talker. I just talk a lot. And here's the deal. Sometimes I have to be quiet. Sometimes my wife tells me to be quiet. And that's just how it is sometimes. And radio for comms and preparedness is no different. Sometimes you just need to listen.

So I think I've beaten that one to death. But it's the truth. It's so hard, it seems, to get people to grasp that because everyone thinks they can just buy their solution and it will do everything that they need done. And that may or may not be the case. So that noise there. So, yeah, everybody wants to buy a solution. Everybody wants to have a handheld solution that they can charge with a cell phone charger and put in an EMP bag and get it out when the stuff gets in the fan and talk

to their mom 600 miles away. And it's not going to happen. It's not going to work, guys. It's not going to work that way. And that's why, again, I've spoken so much about listening. Now, I do want to start talking about talking because I think it's very important that you understand the realities of what that actually entails. And one of the things that it entails is physics. And physics was nothing that I was ever able to really get my head around as a student. I was never a great student, especially in regard to things like physics. But I have learned over the time as a radio operator that there are some laws that supersede other laws. Years ago, if you would have told a man you could take, you know, a couple hundred thousand pounds of aluminum and turn it

into a machine that could fly around the world at 300 miles an hour, they'd laugh at you. You know, they'd probably put you in a building somewhere with some, you know, pillows on the walls or something. But nowadays, it's nothing for us to go to the jet port, get in an airplane and fly from here to wherever you wanted to go and not even think about it. Because the law of lift supersedes the law of gravity. Gravity was what mankind knew for so long. And then they discovered the law of lift and it supersedes the law of gravity. Well, physics has laws and a lot of those cannot be overcome just because we want them to. They can't be beaten just because we want it to work in our favor. So we have to

utilize the tools at hand to make the laws work for us. We can work against them all day long, trust me. And there's plenty of accessories out there that will help you work against them, which in turn works it back against you. But there's also a lot of great stuff out there that will help you work against them, which in turn works it back against you. But there's also a lot of great stuff out there that you can utilize in your favor that will make your communications goals and completing those goals a lot better for you and those around you. Now, here we're going to start right here. There's so many ways that a prepper can get into communications. You know, I mean, you can buy the little blister-packed radios at Walmart. $24, put some AA batteries in, hand them to your kids, talk all over the neighborhood, you're good.

You can order some stuff on Amazon from $20 to $48 to $68 to $120 apiece, just depending on what you want to spend for what you get. Some of those radios you have to have a license for, and really that's pretty simple. You just now pay for it. And others, you don't have to have a license for them. Some of those radios beyond that, you can put in a backpack. You can tow them around. You can put them in your car. You can put them in your building or your shack or your bedroom or your office. You can connect them to little bitty antennas. You can connect them to huge antennas on towers. I mean, it's really kind of endless. And the only limits again are who do you want to talk to and what do you want to spend? Even as an amateur radio operator, it really comes back down to that. Who am I trying to talk to and what do I want to spend?

So we're going to be getting into that sort of thing we're going to talk about cb radios frs gmrs murs all these acronyms and oh man it's it's it's we're going to have some fun with some of this stuff but i just wanted to kind of come in here and say hey thank you for your patience and getting ready to talk about things that talk because we needed to have a foundation of listening and now as we get ready to go forward get ready because this is where we're going to begin to introduce to you the things that you have at your hand, that you're ready to be able to utilize to communicate in case of an emergency. Now, we'll get to the point where there are some things that are beyond my level of expertise, and we're going to be bringing folks in to address that. But we're going to start, again, at the very bottom.

And the very bottom, to me, is CB Radio. Yeah, CB Radio, back in the day, Breaker 1-9, 10-4, good buddy. It's one of my favorite topics. It's really one of the things that got me into communications. And just because I'm starting here does not mean that I think it's the best answer to a prepper's needs for comms just because I have a free ebook that the link will be in the show notes for you to get uh just because of that I don't think that CB is the best thing but you know what a lot of folks have CB radios laying around from back in the day they're stupid cheap you can buy them at

a pawn shop you can buy them at a pawn shop. You can buy them even brand new for less than a hundred bucks very easily. Some good ones. And we'll be talking about those. There's some big changes that have been made in CB radio over the last couple of years, which I believe have enhanced the service. So, uh, just kind of like we started at the very bottom with an AM FM radio,

we're going to start at the very bottom with an AM FM radio. We're going to start at the very bottom. And what I believe is one of the most necessary tools, but at the same time, it may not be exactly what you and your family need. So we're going to talk about CB radios, begin talking about CB radios next time here on the prep comms podcast, just to whet your appetite. But Hey,

again, check the show notes. I've got a free e-book. It's a PDF. I'd love to share it with you. You just follow the link, sign up. It'll come right to your email box. You can read it.

It's about 100 pages long. And it's all about how CB radios can enhance a prepper's communications preparedness. And again, that doesn't mean that the CB is going to be the end-all, be-all. That's the only thing you've got to use and don't have to think about anything else. It's quite the opposite. But it's a great tool to have in the toolbox. And we're going to talk about it the next time here on PrepCom's podcast. Hey, don't forget, Carl and I, we still have the Hub City Mercantile.

We're still selling the British Birkfeld water filter systems. We'd love to put these in your hand. We've got the stainless steel that go on the top of the counter. We have under sink filters that go in with a little baby spigot in the sink. So you can have filtered water at any time that you have pressure, as well as a whole house system that we use as well. Underneath our house, it works great. So you have that type of filtered water in your house at every spigot, even clean toilet water. I don't suggest that, by the way. But anyway, it's Hub City Mercantiles, our show sponsor, and it's us. We're real people,

and we sell real stuff, and it's awesome, and it's the granddaddy of all water filter systems. I think you'd love them if you had one, so check it out. It'll be in the show notes, hubsidymercantile.com. I'm Caleb Nelson, Kilo for Charlie Delta November. Thank you for your time. Really enjoyed being here with you, and can't wait to see you next time On the PrepComs Podcast God bless, 73 y'all Thank you. you