We live in a hurricane zone and have weathered many storms without evacuating. Can typical 2-way radios function in a 20–30-mile range if we were hit by a storm or do we need something very expensive.
How difficult would it be to connect with a family member with an off the shelf set.
How is the ham radio community “pretty F- ed up”?
They listen for people breaking the rules and rat them out and such,from what I heard.
I've heard several people repeat that they are very very strange and not friendly like you would expect.
We are vey protective of the frequencies we are allocated, they are constantly being used by unauthorized people and are continuously attempted to be allocated to corporate users for commercial use. Some frequencies have world-wide propagation and can interfere with legitimate users many hundreds or thousands of miles away. We are licensed and learn about the regulations governing the use of our equipment and frequency bands. Take CB for instance, the radios are limited in power for a reason. The 11 meter band can propagate world-wide under certain conditions and adding an amplifier can interfere with communications far away, to say nothing of the havoc caused by a lack of understanding of basic electrical principals.
Licensing is dead easy, no more Morse code and a few hours of reading a prep manual for a multiple-choise test and you’re on your way.
As far as unfriendly, keying up a repeater without a license can lead to being busted for that, so can unauthorized use of public service frequencies and those users can send you to prison. Part of what you learn is proper procedure in the ham bands and where in the RF spectrum you can operate. Also, in a population of around 750,000, there are bound to be a few assholes, but that is so in every walk of life.
If you are really interested, check out a local club meeting. If not, use your FRS, GMRS or CB within the rules for those services and enjoy.
Oh no! A community that self-enforces its rules! The horror! 🙄
You guys should work on your reputation more i guess. Preppers and others that just want to use these and are not enthusiasts have had bad expirances with your community. If I had more time I would learn more....