When Your Emergency Radio Fails After a Quake: A Backup Comms Priority List
Your radio is dead. The earthquake hit forty minutes ago. You press the PTT button on your expensive ham rig—nothing. Maybe the antenna fell off the roof. Maybe the repeater lost power. Maybe the battery was never charged. At this moment, the difference between being a survivor and being a victim is a backup outline that actually works. I've been through two major quakes—one in California, one in Nepal. Both times, the initial thing to fail was not the ground but the communications. In Nepal, I watched a guy with a $20 Baofeng get through to a relief group while a dozen people with Icoms stood silent. Why? He knew something they didn't: low-power simplex on a forgotten frequency. That's the kind of knowledge this article is about. Not gear reviews, but priorities.