Learning + Tutorials

Should traditional modern communication systems be unavailable, having a backup way to communicate far distances is a smart thing to have.

It's not uncommon for large storms to take out cellphone and land line phone systems and with them likely goes the internet as well.

The easiest and most useful backup option is one that's been around a very long time - and it's long range radio communication via voice and telegraph.

You may have heard it referred to as Ham radio which is slang for Amateur Radio.

Updated November 2025

There are certain items which are difficult if not impossible to recreate from raw materials in the wild.

They are:

Earthquakes are rough. They come from out of nowhere and can be extremely serious very quickly.

They often lead to other circumstances: fires quickly spring up from broken gas lines and downed power lines.

And they almost never happen one at a time, aftershocks a commonplace and can be even more damaging than the original quake.