Prep Comms - Prep Comms 2025 Christmas Black Friday Special

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Prep Comms 2025 Christmas & Black Friday Special Host: Caleb Nelson, K4CDN –  Your no-nonsense guide to smart radio gear and real-world readiness. From AM/FM and weather radios to shortwave, scanners, CB, MURS, FRS, GMRS and power setups — what actually works and what's worth buying. Full storefront and extra gear at https://amazon.prepcomms.com BONUS: Family Comms Advent Calendar PDF   AM / FM & Weather Vondior NOAA – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P7QDJZX Sangean MMR-99 – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BWPSGM18 Midland ER10VP – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08SYK7LJT Midland WR-120 – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00176T9OY RCA RCWR7V – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HSTL7JY Shortwave Tecsun PL880 – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IDM4N5K Tecsun PL368 – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08ZY9GTJV County Comm GP Series – https://countycomm.com/collections/radio Scanners HomePatrol-2 – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JJY6S72 BCD436HP – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I33XDAK BC355N – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00972M9VK CB Radios Uniden PRO520XL – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00004VXNI Bearcat 980 SSB – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01G610DEY Galaxy DX-959B – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00V8C1N96 Radioddity CB-27 Pro – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B56KST6F President McKinley – https://amzn.to/4nRUcXe MURS BTECH MURS-V2 – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BS8KW399 Dakota M538 Base – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004K370GA Retevis RT27V – https://amzn.to/3LJmOEF WilComms Roll-Up J-Pole – https://prepcomms.shop More info → https://MURS.prepcomms.com FRS Radios BTECH FRS-A1 – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2X58BJ5 Motorola T605 H2O – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CMWBVCB5 GMRS Radios BTECH GMRS-V2 – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09Z1NJ1M3 BTECH GMRS-50PRO – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DT7KC686 ¼-Wave & Roll-Up Antennas – https://prepcomms.shop GMRS License Guide – https://GMRS.prepcomms.com Power & Preparedness EcoFlow DELTA 2 – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CHMD99Y4 Honda EU2200i – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08YJVDGS1 Ham & Advanced Favorite Radio – BTECH UV-Pro Best Dealer – https://mtcradio.com Ham Radio Prep (Code HAMRADIO360) – 30×30 Challenge – https://www.familyconnectsystem.com/3030welcome Join the Prep Comms Network Private training for families and teams who want to communicate reliably — now, not later. Monthly training that builds confidence through practice. No theory. No jargon. Founders get half-price lifetime access, a seat on the Dec 2025 Founders Call, and entry to our private online group + Discord. Enrollment closes Nov 30 → https://founders.prepcomms.com Extra links: Amazon Storefront – https://amazon.prepcomms.com GMRS License – https://GMRS.prepcomms.com PrepComms Gear – https://prepcomms.shop 30×30 Challenge – https://www.familyconnectsystem.com/3030welcome Prep Comms Network – https://founders.prepcomms.com 73 y'all & God Bless. — Caleb Nelson K4CDN

It is the prepcoms podcast. Hello everybody. I'm Caleb Nelson. Thanks for dropping by. Hey, do you know that I used to have a program called Ham Radio 360? It ran from 2014 to 2018. And as a new amateur radio operator at the time, I was on there asking questions that I thought. And it turns out they did.

Everybody wanted to ask, except they were just too embarrassed to raise their hand because they didn't want to look stupid. And it was a great show. Had a lot of fun. It's getting hot in here. had the heat on this morning. It snowed flurries a couple of days ago here for like 30 seconds in upstate South Carolina. So it's that time of year. And back in my ham radio 360 days, this time of year meant it was a shopping show. And that's what we're going to do this time through. So if you've never experienced one of my shopping shows, you're really missing out. They're actually pretty

great. And they're still pretty evergreen for all intents and purposes. Because the amateur radio hobby, at least in the gear end of things, moves at the, the speed of snails. So you can go check those out at Ham Radio 360 on your podcast player. The Christmas shows, I think there's probably four or five of them. There are a lot of fun to listen to. And myself and other co-hosts would banner back and forth about this and that. Of course, this time you just get me because I have no co-host. And that's okay. I don't know that we're to the point of needing that at this point. So we're still learning and we're going to learn about some suggestions. If, you know, you're listening and want to make a list and send it

to your significant other or your folks or whomever that you might find something under the tree for you. And that's what we're going to do today. So back a couple of days ago, maybe two weeks ago, I was watching Sunday afternoon football and Walmart and Amazon both were talking Black Friday and it reminded me, hey, those shows were incredibly popular back on Ham Radio 360. I've already seen a couple of guys on YouTube doing best deals for Christmas. So I thought, you know, what the heck, we had so much fun. were so popular back in the day. It was literally one of the most popular episodes of the whole year,

every year, that we did a shopping show. So we'll see how you guys like it. And we'll get started here straight away. So one of the things that we talk about here all the time on prepcoms, as the name even infers, is that we're talking down the road of preparedness and getting ready for something. And it could be the phone stop working. It could be a complete EMP blackout. It could be a tsunami. It could be a tornado. It could be an ice storm. It could be any number of things.

Just today, there was a report of a town in Oklahoma that was having to be evacuated due to a tractor-trailer tanker of some sort had crashed. And it was releasing some kind of gas. And it's not funny that this has happened. I got kids. But there's not enough wind in Oklahoma of all places. Not enough wind to blow this gas out of the city center, and they're having to evacuate people because. So you never know what this situation may bring. And of course, you cannot prepare for every situation.

And we're not doomers or any of that around here, but we're talking about alternative means of communications, the entire premise of this show. So that's what we're going to talk about. Some alternate things that you may want to have on hand going forward. and hey, if you're looking to make a shopping list for Christmas, we've got you taking care of here. So you know stuff breaks. You know that phones go down, storms knock, power out. Just a few minutes ago, I was on a fire call. We got released from the call.

911 went down for like four minutes, and they don't even know why. So stuff breaks all the time. And that's what we talk about here on the show is how to have an alternate to when something breaks, and then maybe a second and third alternate. You know, kind of like a pace plan. Anyway, so we're going to get started. with the show notes for this program, everything I talk about will be in the show notes. Every suggestion I make will be in the show notes and it'll be in the order that we talk about it.

So, you know, if you go back and listen to the very beginning of the prepcom show, we started off with AMFM and weather radios. We moved into shortwave radios, scanners, CB, MERS, FRS. Now we're in GMRS and even talked about some alternative power sources along the way. So that's how we're going to do it. We're going to follow the same model that we started when prepcoms began, and we're going to dive right in here to AMFM and weather radios. Now, I have said that you must start with an AMFM radio.

And a lot of people are like, I got one of those in my car, or there's one in the kitchen under the counter that we don't even use anymore or whatever. And I get that. I really do. I get you got one in your car that you probably don't even listen to anymore, and you may have one stuffed somewhere from, you know, when you were a kid. Here's the deal. You still need a portable AM FM radio.

And I'm the guy that's going to say, I prefer a battery radio over a hand crank radio. But I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you that a hand crank radio will work when batteries die. So, you know, so 50-50 split. I like this little Vonador weather radio, AMFM radio. It's a little tiny guy. I actually carried it in my store, but I'll link it in the Amazon show notes here.

I think it runs on two AA batteries. It's about half the size of a paperback book. The reception is incredibly great. It does AM, FM and weather. So it tunes all three bands. It does not do weather alerts, but you can listen to the NOAA weather radio transmissions on the radio. So it's hard to beat.

It's $20. I think I have a post somewhere. Can a $20 radio save your life? Yeah, I think so. And I would pick that one up. Another one in the list there, there's an email. Another one in the list there is a Sanjian. It's the MMR-99.

Now, I like this one because it does more than just AMFM in weather. I mean, you can Bluetooth into it. It's really kind of cool looking. built very rugged and it'll do a lot of different things. It does crank. It does solar. It's, it's, you know, it's priced at doing all that. It's about 130 bucks. That's a nice little radio. And Sanjian makes some really great stuff back in the day. Carl and I, we camped a lot before we had kids, tent camped, and I had a Sanjian weather radio. It's in my Amazon store, but it was, it was just the best little thing. And it really, it really worked well. It did what

it's supposed to do. Another one to think about is the Midland ER 10, Victor Papa. It's small. It's little. It does all the stuff you want it to do. It does AMFM and weather. It also has a little a flashlight built in and a rechargeable battery. So it's one of those things that, I mean, it's what, $24 and the first one I mentioned is 19. You just got to decide what you like. You know what I'm saying? The other one has an extendable antenna that works really well.

This one does too. Don't misunderstand me. And one looks a little more cool and a little more preppy than the other. But you can decide. These are great choices. Again, they'll be in the show notes. I have the little Vanador, the first one I mentioned, actually have it on a shelf in my house,

and I still have some in stock. Here's the deal. It's a great sounding, great little tunable radio. So I go back to there. Another Midland I want to mention here as we move from AMFM into weather radios is the industry standard. Okay, this is the one you see everywhere. You can buy it from Amazon.

You can buy it at Walmart.com or wherever. It's white. It has a blue screen. Normally it says tornado on the marketing pictures that you see from this. But it's the Midland WR-120B. And what does that mean? It's the white Midland Weather Radio. And this one is the one that we talked about a lot in the programs about weather radio.

It has the S-A-M-E programming style. You put your zip code in. You choose your county, stuff like that. and this thing will only go off when you are under a particular watch, a particular warning, things like that. I have said, and I believe I will continue to stand on this point, that this right here, this weather radio, whether you buy this one or any other weather radio, you really need to focus on having one of these in your home because I think that it is, it's almost as important as a smoke detector. But from a fireman's perspective, you know, you're like, are you serious?

Yeah, I am serious because the smoke detector will alert you when there's smoke in the house. Maybe you're asleep and whatever. And it awakens you to get you up and get you out to safety. Well, a weather radio will do the exact same thing for impending weather that's going to potentially affect you in your residence. Okay. So is it a smoke detector? No. Will a fireman tell you to buy one?

Probably not. but I'm both. So yeah, I would probably, again, always say this is almost as important as a smoke detector. Up next, there's a lower cost version. It's from RCA. It's in the show notes. It's the RCW R7 Victor. It's about 15 bucks less than the Midland.

It's a nice looking little radio. My mother-in-law actually has a version of this, and it's served her well. So if you don't want the white midland, you can get the black RCA, save a couple of bucks. It's in the show notes. Again, extremely important to have these. Whether you live up north and you have freeze warnings coming in or maybe you live out in the Midwest and there's tornado warnings or on the coast. I mean, it's important. Okay.

So you can do that what you want. Again, we've already discussed all these things here. here's just your list of suggestions for you. Up next, one of the things that helped get me into amateur radio and kind of kept me going into the communications hobby of sorts was the shortwave radio. And this was something that I actually found at my grandfather's house, and I have it.

It's in my barn, not to the point that it can really do anything. But it's his old shortwave radio set. it's a console radio and they don't make them like that anymore. It's literally a piece of furniture that had a radio built in. And that's pretty cool when you think about it unless you're living in 2025 and you're not a geek like me. But yeah, so I love shortwave radio. Now, I will say, as I have in the past, in the past programs, it's not what it used to be. The internet, the live streaming and YouTube have really cut down on what happens on shortwave.

wave radio, but you know what? All of that stuff requires the internet. And shortwave radio is radio. So if there was ever a potential breakdown of the internet, there is a great potential that the shortwave radio could make a resurgence and be a valuable tool. And to the point that, and I spoke about this back in the programs regarding propaganda and how you can listen to or you could watch the, let's say we're all in the state. So you're watching here in the states or maybe Canada and you're getting that perspective of your local and national news and say there's something going on. You know, you could tune with a shortwave radio. Now, I know the internet works and you can go to the BBC.com and watch those guys with their mechanical cameras. They've got some great, some great bloopers with those automatic cameras on the BBC. But anyway,

those are on YouTube, by the way. Shortwave radio gives you the opportunity to listen to other programming from other countries, and a lot of times in the English language, that discuss what's going on in their country. Are they discussing what's going on in our country from a different perspective? So shortwave radio, I still believe, is a very important part of a preparedness-minded individual's perspective building toolbox. Local AM FM radio, we talked about a few minutes ago, gives you the local talk, the local radio, the local weather, the local DJs and whatever. And shortwave will open that up to you across the world. So if you're interested in knowing what's going on around you and you

think, hey, one day the internet might not work or, I don't know, you could be in another country, possibly, because this happens in other countries and I guess it'll probably happen here one day, is they just, you know, pull the internet kill switch, or they start sanitizing what you can and can't see according to what they do want you to and not to see. So it's a great way to open up and broaden your perspective in regard to what's happening around the world that hasn't been run through the propagandized news organizations right or left. They're the same side, the different side of the same coin around here. And shortwave will give you the possibility, do the potential to get out there and hear things that you may not be able to hear. So with my little

spiel on shortwave radios there, I'm going to encourage you, if you don't have one, get one. Now, you can find all sorts of shortwave radios on Amazon. You buy them on Walmart.com. I mean, they're everywhere. I love mine. I bought from Radio Shack back in the day. I think I have three or four units from Radio Shack that still work and they still work flawlessly minus the tape deck on the 392 dragging, but that's just a belt replacement. There's two that I really, really like, and I'm going to link them in this show notes. The first one is the tech son, PL 880. And this is the one.

If you're going to buy, if you're going to make an investment into a portable shortwave radio, I would spend this $180 to buy this one. This is the one I recommend to family and friends. This is the one that if I did not have my vintage Radio Shack units, I would own. This is a great radio. Now, it doesn't mean the other ones aren't great and aren't good. Sony makes a great one. Sanjian again makes a great one.

But this one comes in like middle of the road pricing, maybe toward the bottom of the pricing scale for what it does. But the PL880 from Texan is a fantastic shortwave radio. And if you're looking for something like that, get it. I love it because it is single sideband capable. And if you remember we talked about in the previous shows on shortwave radio, the single sideband capability allows the end listener, you who has this radio in your house,

to tune and listen to amateur radio operators talk. Because when we use the shortwave frequencies, we don't use a.m. Well, sometimes we do use a.m. But not really a lot. But we use single sideband. and depending on the frequency is where we go, but we use a side band of the frequency. So this radio actually allows you to slice up the signals inside the receiver and listen to

the ham radio operators talk about the Golden Corral, Krispy Cream Donuts, the latest prostate exam. I mean, you can hear all this informative stuff. And I'm speaking in jest because I am a ham guy, okay? But there's a lot of great information. out there. A lot of good conversation. And again, if you're thinking about buying something like this for an event, for having it to learn more, to gather more information, so you're not just sitting there blind in case of an emergency, you never know when you won't need to listen to an amateur radio operator. He may be passing traffic from a hurricane recovery. They may be talking about a big

ice storm coming in or something like that. So you never know. It could be breakdown of society. just pick something, right? Go to Fox News, pick a headline and say, okay, I might need it for that because that's where we are today in 2025. So shortwave radio again, fantastic. If you buy one, now I'm not going to say don't buy one if you can't, but if you can spring for a shortwave radio receiver that offers you the single sideband capability, that's where you spend your money.

And if you can't, you may just want to keep saving a little bit, okay? It works great. It really, really works great. A second one, another Texan unit that I want to prop up here is the PL 368. And this is the little pocket size. It's about, I don't know, it's about the width of an AR mag, maybe just a little bit taller. And Texan made them for countycom. If you're not familiar with countycom and you've never been to that website, don't go because you'll end up spending thousands of dollars on stuff you really probably don't need. But they white labeled one for countycom. and that's the one I have. And it's about the same price as the Texan on here on Amazon. But it's a great little radio. It's single sideband capable. So with this little bitty radio, I mean, it's like two packs of cigarettes stacked on top of each other, okay? And about the same thickness runs on double A batteries.

You can listen to hand radio operators and you can listen to people from all over the world. Talk on a little radio. Oh my God. And it's got a great sound too. So that's the Texan PL 368. Again, these are in the show notes, in the order. I've talked about them. And just for kicks, I may put the counting com link in there too.

Okay, you'll find it under the shortwave scanners, shortwave radios. They're great. They're small enough to slide down in your pocket. But the power that they put in your hand, I mean, it is incredible. And not to knock. I mean, you can go on right now on Amazon. There's a little single sideband. pocket style radio that comes with a set of headphones.

I think it's 30 bucks. If that's where your budget is, you're better than nothing, okay. But these two radios here are, to me, they are an investment into your preparedness capabilities, and they're really, really hard to beat. The Texan PL 880 and the Texan PL 368. All right. Again, all this stuff is in the order. It can be found in the order in the show notes.

also on our Amazon store, which is Amazon. Prepcoms.coms.com. We'll talk about that later. Up next, in the progress of the show, we talked about radio scanners, like police scanners and fire scanners and EMS, whatever, whoever, maybe you're a NASCAR guy or gal, and you have a scanner for that. You know, you can use that, like, when stuff happens? I hope you know that. I hope you have some of those things programmed into your race scanner. Or maybe, maybe, maybe, you can use that. You know, you have a scanner. You know, this is a great little touch here. I had a gentleman in the comments on YouTube the other day,

mentioned that he had a, I think it was, Balfeng, Pofung, whatever it was, Handy Talkie. And he had a lot of different frequencies programmed in it. And he was using it like a scanner. But his comment was, hey, I have this old Radio Shack scanner. Should I use it? What can I do with it? And I said, well, if it were me,

I'd dump all those frequencies from the Handytalkie into the scanner and listen to it instead. because it scans it probably seven to ten times as fast as your balfing, Pofung, whatever thing will. So a scanner is a remarkable tool. And I have a lot of them more than I will admit because my wife may listen to this program. But here's the deal. You can take a $17. Pofung Balfang radio and program some frequencies into it and listen to your EMS and your fire,

possibly your police dispatch or something like that. You can do that and it will scan and you can count. and you can catch sometimes some radio traffic. But it doesn't scan like a scanner will scan. You should listen to Scanner School podcast. I'll put a link in the show notes if I can remember. You'll learn a lot more about scanners there than you will hear. But I can tell you this, as a dude who's been involved in emergency services for over 30 years,

worked at Radio Shack back in the day, if you're wanting to know what's going on locally, buy a radio scanner that will listen to and can give you what's happening around you. For instance, I had some friends. They had young daughters. This is back in the day, okay? They had young daughters, and they left their house unlocked all the time. And the mom and dad were going to work all day, and their house stayed unlocked in a really nice neighborhood.

But the house was always unlocked so that when their daughters got home from school and carpool, they could just walk in the door and be at home. And there was like seven million places inside this house for bad guys to hide waiting on their little girls to come in the house by themselves after school to do their homework and get on American online instant messaging. Terrible idea. It scared me to death. This was before I had kids and I was just freaking out because I'm like, this family doesn't realize the city we live in. This is, you know, 20 or 30 years ago. So I took one of my scanners.

And I said, okay, guys, family, parents. I want you guys to take this little handheld scanner. This program just ready to go. And when you guys get bored in the evening, instead of turning on television, just listen to this for about an hour or two and see what's going on in and around our county at nighttime. Now, it sounds the same in the daytime,

but it works. You're not going to do that. And about three days later, they called and said, we've heard enough, and we're going to start locking our house. Well, thank goodness. So a scanner will give you the behind the curtain view of what's going on around you, whether it's your county, your city, your state.

A lot of the military frequencies can be listened to as well. You can listen to Civil Air Patrol, fire trucks, police, you know, it depends on what's available around you, what you can hear. Like if your city has an encrypted system, you're not going to hear it. If it has a trunked system, which means they share frequencies and whatnot, you can hear that with the right scanner. So with all of that said, I'm 52 years old and I have a lot of scanners. But I can tell you this, I am an avid scanner listener, but I have particular things I like to listen to. And I like to like sometimes sit down and just scan the frequencies themselves. And I've got stuff to do that with.

but if I were to buy my mom a scanner, if I were to buy my brother a scanner, or maybe my brother-in-law, you know, somebody that I wanted them to have something, I would buy the Unidon Home Patrol 2. And the reason being is that it's not portable, so it's kind of semi-portable,

but it's not like a handheld radio, walkie-talkie-style portable. But it's like a desktop, but it's the size of a paperback book with a touchscreen. and you can program your zip code and then tell it, I want to listen to the police, the fire, the EMS, and the local trash pickup for this zip code. And that's what it gives you.

Or you can say, I'd like to listen to emergency statewide communications and the military and whomever. It'll give you that too. And it's so cool because it's already in there. Now, it's not cheap, of course, but it can decode what the good old boy scanning. from back in the day can't. It can do trunking, P25, stuff like that. So it can listen to those systems in a lot of the larger areas. That's where they're at. If they haven't gone encryption, this one can probably listen. And it's so easy to use. It's so easy to use. And that's one of the things that I found is you can hand somebody a really complicated tool. And if they're not like it into it with

the knack, they're not going to use it. They're going to be afraid. It's going to be too complicated, and they're going to walk off. So if you're looking for something easy to use and you want something that can listen to what's going on around you, what's happening in your county, what's up, the United and Home Patrol 2 is my choice. Now, I know that SDA, I know there's some other stuff out there. I know, but we're talking prep comms here.

So we're talking to everybody as a whole. And if you're beyond this, okay, cool, stick around. We may have something for you later. But if you want a scanner, Unit and Home Patrol 2. Now, if you want something that's similar and easy to use like that in a more handheld and portable fashion, then you need to check out the Unitin 436 HP. And this is the Home Patrol, but it's not the desktop. It's the size of a handheld walkie-talkie. It does exactly the same thing.

Can hear the exact same stuff. You set it up with your zip code as well. You can choose which services you want. The screen is about the third of the size. as the regular Home Patrol 2, and it's not color. It's just a gray and black, you know, finish there. But it works the same way. It can hear the same stuff.

It's just easier to take along with you in the truck or maybe slide down in your plate carrier or whatever. Either one of those. Fantastic. I've had them both. I prefer the Home Patrol 2, the desktop model, and that's the one I currently have right now. Again, I had the 436.

it was a banger. I had to sell it when Carlo was sick. And I missed the fact that I didn't have the Home Patrol because it's so, it's just so blatantly easy to cheat and set up and run. Okay. And, you know, I've got a lot going on. So I don't want to have to figure out another manual and all this stuff. Just make it work. And it does. And lastly, I want to mention one. If maybe you're just out in, you know, fly over land and you guys don't have any encryption. There's no P25. You just want to skis. scanner to kind of keep up with some stuff. Unidon's been making this little bear cat for years.

So 355 now is the model number. It's like 100 bucks. And sometimes you can buy it even less than that if you find it on sale for like 85. But I'm not actually thinking about inflation. So anyway, I've had numerous, I think I've got two or three of these. They're fantastic. Facebook Marketplace has them a lot too. So it's the Unidon Bearcat 355 is the model current model number.

And you have to program it, you know, for your channels you want to program in there. It's not really hard to do. Scans plenty of fast, and it just works. It's desktop. It's got a little prop stand on it. You can connect an external antenna. All these can take external antennas, of course. But I use one of these in my shack as a secondary backup to my firefighting scanner, EMS and stuff.

So I love them. It's the Barrettat 355. It's cheap. friendly. It's analog. Okay. So it's not digital. It won't do trunking or anything. But man, it is super reliable. These things have been on the market for, I don't know, 10 years, 20 years. And if you're in small town or county level living, it's, it's there. It's there. Got it. Okay. Now, we're going to move into CB radios. I got a note the other day that C.B. Radio in the state of New York, especially around the city's garbage. So don't try it up there. And I appreciate

that note because, you know, out here, I'm just here. and skip. So there's a lot of locals that still use it around out in the country, but we're out in the country. So all these things will apply to your particular situation, and you'll have to be the one responsible to make the decisions for that. But CB radios, I've got the free CB radio ebook. I'll put a link in this segment here for you of the show notes. But it's one of the simplest and easiest, I mean, it is the Keep It Simple, Caleb version of two-way communications. I mean, I mean, primarily because generally everybody's got one of these laying around or there's a pawn shop close enough that you can have one laying around.

Pretty cheap, matter of fact. No license required anymore. And I mean, millions of people use them every day. You've heard me on this very program talk about the CB radios that I would choose. And I'm going to tell you, I'm still going back to the Unitan 510 or the Unitan 520. Now they're so close in price right now. I'm just going to go ahead and say get the 20. Unit and Pro 520 XL.

I had these CB radios back in the 1990s after my cobra 25 and 29 got stolen out of my vehicle. I replaced them with this. They were $35 back in the day, by the way. They're double that now. But I'm talking about a performing radio for its size. now it's not sideband it's not special it's not fancy it's not going to do anything but talk to someone else with another CB radio that's it that's how you get it's not going to do anything fancy or special but it'll talk it'll talk when you need it to talk and if you just need

a simple cheap way to talk to your buddy or something that's you know within three to five miles unit in 510 520 pros um there there's an another one that Unidon makes. This one is the Bearcat 980. It's about twice as much nowadays in regards to cash, but it's a lot more radio. I mean, this thing, it does AMFM. It also does single sideband. So there'll be a link in the show notes for this one. This is more of a trucker-sized CB. So it's not compact at all. It's just not. But it does work great. And it's easy to use. The screen's very, you know, user-friendly, however you want to say it. But man, yeah, for what you get for the cash, it's a lot of radio. And again, a single sideband,

if you remember from the shortwave radio and the CB radio shows, you get a little more output power there legally as well as your signal's going to go further. Of course, none of that will matter with a junky antenna. But you can figure that out, right? So right before, I got my amateur radio license. I finally fulfilled a desire I had had for decades, and that was to get a trucker CB. I wanted one of those big talking radios with the built-in echo and Roger Beep and clarifiers and talk backs. I wanted every bit of it. And I ended up with a Galaxy DX-959, and it was a rocker.

I mean, it was, this legit, it's a huge CB radio. like, you know, a trucker would use. It's not something you're going to put in your Honda prelude or something. They're going to make those again. Anyway, it's big, it's expensive, but it'll talk. And it can talk legally. And you can probably have some stuff done to it to make it talk even greater than that. It's in the show notes.

It's a Galaxy DX-959. Now, I did lose that radio. I had it taken in for repairs, and the guy did not listen to me. When I asked him to check it out, he did hundreds of dollars of repairs to it that made it no longer valuable to me. So I sent a friend of mine up there who had always wanted a Galaxy DX-959, and he ended up with it by paying the repair bill. And I replaced it with a President McKinley, and it is a great little radio. I'm loving it. President McKinley.

I can't remember what he did for our country, but apparently it was enough to have to have. have him get his name on a CB radio by the company president. And I hope to remember to put this link in the show notes. I didn't have it on the list. But it is what I'm currently running. And I like it. It doesn't look like any CB radio I've ever owned before. It looks more like an amateur radio, the chassis.

But it's kind of semi-compact and it works really, really good. All right. Next and last on the list is the one that I talked about the most during our CB radio programs. And that's the radio oddity. CB 27. This dude is the tiniest thing you've ever seen. I mean, it's a nothing little radio. It's so small, you could lose it in the cab of your truck. And seriously, I mean, it's nothing. The microphone is almost bigger than the radio chassis itself. 40 channels. It works great. It does four watts out, which is your legal output on CB. It comes wired for a cigarette adapter plug. that's what little draw it actually puts on the system.

And I can tell you, you can go back and listen to the programs. I talked about it every single show. It was a performer. It will shock you what it'll do. So that's in the show notes. That's a radio oddity CB 27 Pro. There may be some radio oddity coupons and stuff I'll put down here as well because I think that they've got some sales, them and red of us as well.

So we move from CB radio into MERS back in the shows the way we did things. And it was kind of funny the way we did this because MERS, if you remember, I stated it was the best kept secret and prepper radio communications. And for years, decades, a long time, I've been here on the farm for 15 years. I would not tell anybody about MERS because I did not want them to get a MERS radio. and come in here and start talking on my radio. So that's what happened. Anyway, I am still kind of hesitant to share too much about MERS, but I love it.

It's one of my favorite things. And it's just what it is. It's a great service for you if you're living out in the country or maybe in a small town USA. You may find some Walmart, some Sam, some Costco. BJ's traffic, stuff like that on it. But maybe not. Maybe not.

It just depends on where you are around here. There's nothing except the occasional dog tracking collar, which can also use these frequencies legally. So MERS has just five channels. Do you remember this? Just five channels. Low power, but there's no antenna restriction. So you can do whatever you want to,

up to 60 feet, I believe, above the top of whatever it's mounted to. So here on the farm, we've used Dakota Alert radios and BTEC MERS radios. The Dakota Alert for well over 15 years and the MERS, I think we added those about six or seven years ago. So if I'm buying walkie-talkies for MERS, I'm going to stop here and say, I'm going to put a show note, an additional link into for like I read of us because this is a good deal. the BTX are built on the UV-82 chassis, which is one of my favorite handheld chassis. And you can get all kind of accessories for these things. You can charge them with USBC.

They also pick up the NOAA frequencies, and you can listen there. Hard to beat. They're not cheap. I mean, I think they're 60 bucks apiece, but they are really, really solid merge radios. There's my, you'll hear my chair squeaking today. And then, of course, I would suggest you get a base station.

There's not a lot of, not a lot of choose from on this stuff. I'm going to go with the Dakota Alert Base Station. Why? Because I have two of them. I've had them for 15 years. They still work. You plug an external antenna.

You can use the little base antenna that comes with it. Either way. And you can hear your driveway alerts. You can talk on your MERS radios across the farm. They're in the show notes. They work good. They're not sexy, promise, but they do work. So, anyway, there's that.

MERS radio is a great kept secret. And I got so many comments on our MERS videos on YouTube, but people using them and, yeah, go check them out on YouTube. Then we moved from MERS to FRS, which is the family radio service I talked about back in the day, buying these walkie-talkies for $100 a set from Sam's and thought I had arrived because I didn't have to use a CB radio anymore. And I didn't have to learn Morse code, praise the Lord.

and you know what they were fun they were great i still got them i showed you a picture of the box that they came in so they don't make those anymore but there are two that i really like i told the story about deer run camp in Nashville Tennessee asking me what do we need to use to run the zip line this year i suggested the b tech frs alpha one and um they have a little a little place to put a lanyard in it, you know, I mean, they're, they're made for kids, but up at Deer Run, these guys, they're running the zip line. There's four people on the zip line running it, send and receive on two sides. I mean, they're teenagers. They're college-aged guys and gals, but they're not trying to take care of this stuff. And they've lasted over a year at camp. I mean, yeah, I'm still

shocked. And the reports keep coming back. Thank you. This was the best suggestion over. So if you're looking for something to hand to your kids, they won't destroy. And you don't want to spend 150 bucks, the BTAC FRS Alpha 1. Show Note link there. And then if you want something that is guaranteed to be more solid and look more the part, the Motorola talk about so hard to be. There's a waterproof version I've got listed here in the show notes. It's to talk about 605.

And they're waterproof. Again, these things aren't, they're not like tactical, but they're not supposed to be. They're made for you and your family. Family radio service. They're made for you and your family to use to have an alternative to, you know, having to go out and get the GMRS license. And we've been talking about that here in the show. And now we're going to talk about it on our shopping show. Of course, you know, I've been talking GMRS for weeks now in the program.

If you're just jumping in here sometime in the next 12 to 15 months, go back and listen. And we're still not finished with it yet. And again, it's just one of those things that what do you want to do? Well, I talk about MERS a few minutes ago. MURS V2 from BTEC is a solid, solid choice built in the UV-82 chassis. The GMRS version from BTEC is the GMRS V2. They're 65 bucks apiece. These are great.

They are so hard to beat. for the money there on the upper end of that. But again, you got USBC charging. You've got replacement batteries and antennas and all these things galore. So you can really, you know, you can add and customize whatever you want to do if you're that guy or gal. But in the Amazon storefront, there's a lot of GMRS radios to choose from. And I didn't put ones up there that I wouldn't buy.

Okay. So that's why they're in the store. Speaking of, in the store, the brand new B-tech GMRS 50 Pro. Now, I just got this a week or so ago. I've been using it. This thing is pretty incredible. It works without a phone. So it's a full-on GMRS 50-watt output mobile radio.

You can use in your house, your car, your radio shack. You can put it on a cutting board and drop it into a backpack, but maybe a small battery. And you're doing something then. So it's great. It is great. And then if you want to, you can interface it with your telephone or your tablet, either iOS or Android. And you can control the radio, the programming, the messaging aspects, all of that from your phone.

The app is free. It's a great rig. I cannot wait until they give me this for the amateur radio hobby of mine. So those are my two picks. There's others. Like I said, they're good. So make sure you check those out. If neither one of those suit your needs, there are other alternatives.

that I'll mention I'll have there in the store for you. Now, some accessories for your GMRS radios. We've added some of these to my store, and I don't want to let it get away from the opportunity here. I've just added a quarter wave base antenna from Pelacombs to the store, my prepcoms.coms.com shop store. And this is a base station antenna. I talked about it in the last program.

It's a base station antenna that is a very small footprint, but will give you gain on your radios on the GMRS band. And you just take a piece of coax from your walkie-talkie to the antenna, the best you can buy, the best you can put in place there. And I think you'll be happy. And it will really increase, it'll make your handy talk you a base station. If you want something a lot more portable than that, we also have the roll-up J-Poll. They're incredibly popular. And they sell out about every time I put them in the store. That's from Wilcoms.

Corey makes those forests. And it's a roll-up J-Pole. So it also works on the merge frequencies, but we're talking GMRS here. So you have a roll-up J-Pole. It's made out of wire and it rolls up to, I don't know, about a six-inch circle, I guess, with a 10 or 12-foot lead on it. You can toss it up in a tree and extend the range of your mobile, your base, or your handheld radios. Also have a license guide.

How do you get your GMRS license without pulling your hair out on the FCC website. I've done it for you. It's a PDF as well as some AI uh, prompts. You can do it either way. It's free and there'll be a link in the show notes for you, uh, to get that if you're interested. Also, um, GMRS dot prepcoms.com.com is the GMRS radio store. So there's that. Continuing on and thank you for your patience here. I know this has gone on long and I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope it's made some sense and,

and giving you some things to think about. real quick back during Helene it was a mess in the southeast you guys know the story we bought following helene to complement our our gasoline generator a big you know whole house generator we bought a echo flow delta two power portable power system solar and its battery we bought one of those love it it works great i bought it with the intent to use overnight so i don't have to let a generator run overnight. I just don't listen to it. Maybe I want to sit down and watch television or a video or a DVD or something that the power is out. This will power that without having the generator hum in the background. And speaking of hum, if you don't want a hum and you want something that can

run your refrigerators from time to time during an outage, I am going to suggest you find yourself in a Honda EU 220. It's maybe the best portable, small, easy to carry. Always starts every time you pull it, it's the Honda EU 2200. It's literally the industry standard that everybody copies. Links in the show notes. You know, I'm an amateur radio operator, above all things. And, well, I mean, how much further is there to go? Don't answer that.

But no, I do enjoy the amateur radio hobby, and it's just where I've kind of landed in regards to all this comm stuff. So I have to tell you just a little bit about ham, because we're going to eventually talk about it here on the prepcom show. My favorite radio of the year, maybe the last two years, has been the B-Tech UV-Pro, and this thing, it just does it all. I mean, it's like the previous B-Tech radio I mentioned a few moments ago that you can run it through your app on your phone. It's UHF, VHF, it's waterproof, it does weather, it picks up airband. It's the one I threw down in the creek and had connected to my roll-up antenna.

the video. So the APRS, it's got a built-in Bluetooth TNC, talking all the stuff that doesn't matter to you right now, but one of these days, if you decide to get a hand radio license, it'll be really important. And it's amazing that for less than $200, they have shoved it all into a walkie-talkie that performs. And I use this thing, not only as an amateur radio operator, but I also use it for my firefighting stuff. So just earlier today, went out on a call. This one was the closest to me, so I picked up the UV Pro, got into dispatch, was able to call, and it just works every time. And if you don't like the black, they have it in like a, what is that color, everybody's cool nowadays uses? It's like coyote tan or something.

We have green down here in the southeast. But I know it's a really cool type of cool color. So you guys check that out. The BTEC UV Pro, by far, one of the best radios to come to market for us. in a long time. If you need an amateur radio dealer or maybe you just can't find what you're looking for on Amazon, I would like to suggest you visit my friends, Richard and Christine Lenore at mTCRadio.com.

Now, they're down in Paris, Texas. They've been in business for 15 or 60, maybe it's 16 years now. And they are some of the finest individuals that are alive in this country. I'm talking and I'm not just blowing smoke guys. These people are amazing and they will do what they can to give you the best deal for what you're looking for. I mean, they're not just like a former sponsor of my Ham Radio 360 show and they're paying nothing to have this amazing mention here. But these are friends of mine, like people that I know like and trust and consider like extended family. I'm not making it up or trying to belabor the point.

they're good people. So if you need something, check out mTCRadio.com. I love them. Seriously. Richard's like a brother. They're awesome people. All right. And last thing on the ham radio front here, if you don't have your license and maybe you'd like to think about getting your license, I got a 30, 30 challenge.

Study 30 minutes a day for 30 days and you pass. I just guarantee it by saying my kid did it. So you probably could too. It's free, and I've got links in there for the different types of studying services that I recommend. Number one, my number one recommendation is ham radio prep. My youngest son just finished his used ham radio prep, and he loves it. He loves it. I got a 20% coupon that I'll put in the show notes.

If you're interested in getting your amateur radio license, and you may not be, that's okay. You can do that and use the code, save 20%. It works great. My son will vouch. all right. So everything we've talked about today is linked down here in the show notes. And if you want to find more, you can just visit the storefront on Amazon at amazon.coms.com.com. And you know as well as I do that buying stuff does not fix any problems. I mean, you could buy everything we talked about today. But if you don't know how to use it, if you don't develop a system or ways or a means to implement what you bought, it's going to do you zero.

good. No good. And here's the thing. You have to know one, how to use your gear, how to implement it. And the people around you that you expect to participate in these things, they're going to need to know something too. So that's exactly why I started this podcast is to help you understand the what's and howls and whys. It's also why I have decided to build the Prepcoms Network. And Prepcoms Network is built for families, teams, small organizations, or maybe if you just want to be left alone and still have some backup comms, but not necessarily with your next of kin. How about that? But if you want to learn to communicate reliably right now, I'd like to invite you to come join

the prepcoms network. If you're looking for something that has more to do with preparedness than just panic and being afraid about whatever the news tells you to be afraid about today, but you know that you need a plan and you don't really know how to get the plan built or where to even start with that, well, prepcom's network is for you. Each month, we're going to walk through practical, repeatable steps. We're going to do training together, live training together, that will build up your skills and your confidence,

and it's going to help you be able to help those around you communicate in case of an emergency. I'm not talking theory. You know what I'm saying? I'm not going to throw ham radio jargon at you the whole time. We're not going to just guess and kind of throw jello on the wall. this is a clear, concise, proven system to help you and your group, your family, whomever, get together and make a plan, build a plan, test a plan within a group of people who are doing the exact same thing you are. Now, I'm going to launch this thing starting Monday. So if you're listening, and this is, you know, after Christmas, I'm sorry.

But we're right here in November of 2025. This show is going to release here on the 13th, 13th or 14th of November. So we're talking right now. It's going to go live. And I'm offering a founder's discount. So those first members that come in, and we're going to limit it. We can't have, you know, 2,000 people try to come in here and help establish this thing. But we're going to offer a lifetime pricing, half off to our founding members of the Prepcom network.

we're also going to once you come in, we're going to have a live Zoom call once a month where we do our training together. We're going to have a private group. We'll talk about in just a minute. And here, into the month of December, after we get the founders in, get everybody settled in the group, we're going to do a live call together, and we're going to hammer out the directions in addition to what I have planned that you, the end user, want to use, going forward into the new year on a founder's call.

So we'll also have, again, the private online group, not trolls, not there's not a bad question. You're not a dummy. You're going to be treated with respect as you imagine you should be and not have to ask these questions in these, you know, Facebook groups or internet forums and you just get laughed out of the group because you actually had a good question. You just didn't know the answer. There'll be a Discord channel that's private as well. So you have the online group, a Discord channel for communications amongst each other. other as well as myself and others that we bring in. Got some guys that we're going to be bringing in some gals that are subject matter

experts and different aspects of what we're going to be talking about. But we're going to train together. We're going to ask questions and share our results, our wins, and our losses all alongside people all over the country who are serious about trying to build connection and leadership, whether, again, it's in their house, it's in their small group, maybe it's their neighborhood watch or whatever. We're building that out with founders. And we're going to build this system that families next year.

year will be implementing themselves when they join off of what we build this year together. So it's not just an early access, which it is early access, but it's your chance to help build this community up and prepare it for what's ahead of it. Founders access is open now and it closes November 30th. And these prices, your founders will let you in at half price, whether you choose monthly or yearly. And that price sticks with you from now on. No contract. There's not, you know, there's not like a, you know, blood oath or anything. You've got to sign here. And you can get out in 30 days if you don't like it.

I understand. Here's the deal. Right now, half price, $49 a month or $497 for the year. And it'll be worth more than that, well more than that as you get in and you see what we're going to be doing in here. You've been looking for something that's private, something, voices that you trust, people that you want to communicate and make, make some changes with. This is for you.

It's called the Founders Prepcom Network. So our Prepcoms network founders. I said that wrong, but there is some ADHD in there somewhere. So if you're interested, we'll learn more. Of course, you can DM me, but you can also check out founders. Dot prepcoms.com to sign up. And again, it's 49 a month or 497 a year, half price. This is only good till November 30th.

And then we're going to cut that off and to go back to full price. The founders will come in. they're going to lay the foundation, set the table, and we're going to get rocking this. Monthly training together, private group, Zoom calls once a month, as well as a Discord channel for chatting back and forth when it's necessary. So maybe you want to be a founder. Maybe you know somebody that would benefit being a founder and you wanted to gift this to them. It's all there at founders.proccoms.com.com. Black Friday half off special until November 30th.

So, if any of that sounds great, let me know. And you can join us at founders. Prepcoms.com. Thank you for listening. I have taken, wow, almost an hour of your time. So while you have been watching your wife shop on Amazon for some stuff, maybe you've been able to send her some links and maybe you'll get something under the tree as well. We're going into a new year. We're going into the Christmas season.

And I have no idea what either of those hold in regards to, current events or what may transpire and who you know who knows how long i do know this i celebrate jesus's birth at christmas and he's the reason i'm here i hope you guys have a great thanksgiving merry christmas i'm sure we'll talk before then and a happy new year and take these show notes and look through and if we can help you with something you know if you've tried to before i'll contact you i'll respond i'm here i'm here to help and want to see you grow and your communication especially for you and your family to stay connected in case of an emergency or when something happens. All right. You guys have a great one again. Thanks for listening. God bless you all. 73 and happy Thanksgiving.

And the prepcoms network is for families, teams, churches, small organizations, maybe just lone wolves. That's probably not the right word to use. Lone Rangers.