Modern communication infrastructure fails in a specific sequence. Cellular networks go first — towers run on backup power for 4-8 hours before batteries deplete and the towers go dark. Internet follows as data centers exhaust their backup capacity. Landlines last longer but depend on central office equipment that also runs on backup power. In a sustained grid-down event of more than 24 hours, all of these fail, and the household that has not established an independent communication capability is effectively deaf and mute — unable to receive information about what is happening and unable to reach anyone beyond walking distance.
This is not a theoretical scenario. Every major ice storm, hurricane, earthquake, and extended power outage in the past 30 years has produced extended periods of complete communication blackout in affected areas. The households that fared best were the ones with battery-powered radios, ham radio licenses, and pre-established communication plans with family members and neighbors. None of these capabilities require technical expertise beyond an afternoon of reading. All of them are buildable before an event and useless if not built until after one.
This post covers the communication stack from simplest to most capable: battery radio for receiving information, GMRS/FRS radios for short-range household and neighborhood communication, CB radio for local area communication, and ham radio for long-range communication and emergency nets. Each layer serves a different purpose. All four together provide full communication capability independent of any infrastructure.
THE COMMUNICATION HIERARCHY
Receive only (no license required): Battery AM/FM/shortwave/NOAA radio. This is the minimum. It costs $30-60, requires no license, no skill beyond turning it on, and provides access to emergency broadcasts, weather alerts, and whatever remains of broadcast media during a crisis. Every household should have one and most do not.
Short range — 1-2 miles (FRS, no license required): Family Radio Service walkie-talkies. 22 channels, limited power, adequate for household-to-household communication within a neighborhood. These are the $25 blister-pack radios at Walmart and Target. They work for their stated purpose.
Short-medium range — 5-25 miles (GMRS, license required): General Mobile Radio Service. Uses the same frequencies as FRS but at higher power (up to 50 watts with a base station) and with access to GMRS repeaters that extend range significantly. A GMRS license costs $35, covers your entire household for 10 years, requires no exam. This is the correct license for most households wanting reliable neighborhood-to-community range communication.
Medium-long range — regional to global (ham radio, license required): Amateur radio. Three license classes (Technician, General, Extra) with increasing privileges. A Technician license — achievable in an afternoon of study and a 35-question exam — provides access to VHF/UHF frequencies including local repeaters and emergency nets. A General license adds HF (high frequency) privileges that allow regional and global communication. Ham radio is the communication system that works when everything else has failed and the one used by emergency management, Red Cross, and FEMA supplemental communication teams.
LAYER 1 — EMERGENCY RECEIVE RADIO
What to buy: A multi-band portable radio covering AM, FM, shortwave, and NOAA weather bands. The Kaito KA500 ($60), Eton FRX5-BT ($80), and Sangean ATS-909X ($180) are well-regarded options at different price points. Features that matter: NOAA weather alert capability (automatically activates when a weather alert is broadcast in your area), shortwave reception (international broadcasts that continue when domestic infrastructure fails), and multiple power sources (built-in rechargeable battery, hand crank, solar panel, AA batteries as backup).
Why shortwave matters: During a sustained domestic grid failure, US broadcast infrastructure is unreliable. Shortwave broadcasting from other countries — BBC World Service, Radio New Zealand, Deutsche Welle, Radio Havana Cuba — continues regardless of US grid status. These broadcasts provide international perspective on events when domestic sources are unavailable or compromised. A radio that receives shortwave is worth considerably more in a prolonged event than one that does not.
NOAA weather radio: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration operates a network of dedicated weather radio transmitters covering nearly all of the continental US. NOAA weather radio broadcasts continuously 24/7 with current conditions, forecasts, and emergency alerts. It operates on seven dedicated frequencies (162.400-162.550 MHz). In any emergency, NOAA weather radio is the most reliable government-operated information broadcast. Know your local NOAA frequency and keep it programmed in your radio.
Store: One multi-band radio per household. Store with a full set of backup batteries. Charge the internal battery fully before storage and recharge annually.
LAYER 2 — FRS WALKIE-TALKIES
What they are: Family Radio Service radios operate on 22 shared channels at up to 2 watts. No license required. Range is typically 0.5-2 miles in real-world conditions — less in urban environments with buildings and terrain, more in flat open country. Marketed as having 20-35 mile range on packaging — this is a theoretical maximum under ideal laboratory conditions that you will never achieve. Actual real-world range is a fraction of that.
What they are good for: Household coordination (parent to child in different parts of a property), immediate neighbor communication (house to house within a few hundred feet), and short-range perimeter communication on a property. Not adequate for neighborhood-wide communication except in very low-density settings.
What to buy: Motorola T600, Midland GXT1000, or similar quality branded units — not unbranded cheap imports. Buy 4-6 units for a household — enough for every adult plus two spares. Verify they use AA or AAA batteries rather than proprietary rechargeable packs — proprietary batteries fail and cannot be replaced from storage.
Channel discipline: Establish a primary channel and a backup channel before you need them. Write the channel assignments on a card stored with each radio. In a real event, everyone needs to be on the same channel without having to figure it out under stress.
LAYER 3 — GMRS RADIO
What it is: General Mobile Radio Service uses 22 channels (7 of which are shared with FRS) at up to 5 watts handheld or 50 watts base/mobile. The higher power means meaningfully longer range — 5-15 miles handheld to handheld in typical terrain, and GMRS repeater access which extends range to 50+ miles.
The license: A GMRS license ($35 from the FCC, no exam required, covers your entire household for 10 years) is the correct license for households that want reliable beyond-line-of-sight communication without investing in ham radio study. Apply at https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsFiling/regNew.jsp. Your license is issued within a few days. Your call sign is assigned automatically. You are required to identify your station with your call sign periodically when transmitting — this is not complicated, it means saying “this is [call sign]” when you start a transmission.
Repeaters: GMRS repeaters are community-operated relay stations that receive a signal on one frequency and retransmit it at higher power on another, extending the effective range of low-power handheld units dramatically. Find GMRS repeaters in your area at mygmrs.com. Contact the repeater trustee to request access — most community repeaters grant access freely, especially to locals. A GMRS handheld radio with access to a local repeater can communicate 50+ miles.
What to buy: Midland MXT275 (mobile, 15 watts), Midland GXT1000VP4 (handheld, 5 watts), or Wouxun KG-805G (handheld, 5 watts). Buy a mobile unit with an external antenna for base station or vehicle use and handheld units for portable operation. External antennas dramatically increase range over the rubber duck antennas supplied with most handhelds.
LAYER 4 — HAM RADIO
Ham radio is the communication infrastructure that functions when everything else has failed. It is used by emergency management agencies, hospitals, Red Cross, FEMA auxiliary communication teams, and private citizens trained in emergency communication. In every major disaster of the past 50 years — hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, wildfires — ham radio operators have been the communication backbone when cellular and internet infrastructure was destroyed.
The Technician license: This is the entry-level ham license. It requires passing a 35-question multiple choice exam drawn from a publicly available question pool — all questions and answers are published in advance. Study time: 10-20 hours for most people. Exam cost: $15 at an in-person exam session, $5 online through some VECs. Your license is issued within a week of passing the exam. Valid for 10 years, renewable for free.
The Technician license grants privileges on VHF (144-148 MHz, 2-meter band) and UHF (420-450 MHz, 70-centimeter band) frequencies — the frequencies used for local and regional communication via repeaters. In a regional grid-down event, these are the frequencies that will be active with emergency net operations.
The General license: Adds HF privileges — the high frequency bands that allow long-distance communication via ionospheric propagation. With a General license and appropriate HF equipment, you can communicate coast to coast and internationally without any infrastructure. This is the license that allows you to receive news and communicate with distant family members when all other long-distance infrastructure is down. Study time: an additional 20-30 hours beyond Technician level.
Licensing resources: The ARRL (American Radio Relay League, arrl.org) publishes study materials for both licenses. The HamStudy.org website and app provide free flashcard-based study for the question pool. ARRL local clubs hold exam sessions regularly — find one at arrl.org/find-an-amateur-radio-license-exam-session.
What to buy (Technician):
- Baofeng UV-5R or UV-82 — $25-35, covers 2-meter and 70-cm bands. The entry-level choice for VHF/UHF. Adequate for learning, repeater access, and local communication. Battery-powered, programmable, widely supported. Not the most reliable radio for serious emergency use but functional and extremely affordable.
- Yaesu FT-60R or FT-70DR — $100-130. More durable and reliable than the Baofeng, better audio, better receiver. The step-up choice for a primary handheld.
- Yaesu FT-7900R or Kenwood TM-V71A (mobile) — $150-250. Higher power (50 watts), external antenna, for vehicle or base station use. Dramatically better range than a handheld.
What to buy (General, HF):
- Yaesu FT-891 — $700. Compact, all-band, 100 watts, suitable for portable and base station operation.
- Icom IC-7300 — $1,100. The standard choice for a base station HF radio — excellent receiver, good SDR display, reliable.
- Antenna: A wire dipole antenna for 40 meters (about 66 feet of wire total) costs $10-20 in materials and covers the 40-meter band, which provides regional (200-500 mile) communication during the day and continental communication at night. This is the minimum HF antenna worth building. Instructions available at any amateur radio website or ARRL antenna guide.
Emergency nets: In a regional emergency, ham radio operators activate emergency nets — organized communication networks with a net control station coordinating traffic. Common emergency nets use the 2-meter band via local repeaters. Know your local repeater frequencies and the local emergency net procedures before you need them. Your local ARRL Emergency Communications team (ARES) holds regular nets and training sessions — find yours at arrl.org/ares.
PRE-EVENT COMMUNICATION PLAN
A communication plan established before an event is worth ten times as much as one improvised during it. It should be written, printed, and held by every household member and relevant family member. It answers these questions:
Primary contact methods: What is the first thing you try? (Cell phone, text, GMRS channel, etc.)
Secondary contact methods: What do you try if primary fails? (Radio channel, landline, etc.)
Rally points: Where does the household assemble if members are separated? A primary location (your home) and a secondary location (a specific neighbor’s house or community location) if home is inaccessible.
Out-of-area contact: Designate one person outside the likely affected area as the communication hub. It is often easier to reach someone in another state than another block. Everyone checks in with that person rather than trying to reach each other directly in a congested communication environment.
Radio channels: Primary and backup channel for each radio type in use. Written on a card with each radio.
Check-in schedule: When do household members check in? Twice daily is standard. What time? Stick to it.
Code words: A simple duress signal — a specific word or phrase in a normal-seeming communication that indicates the speaker is under duress and the message should not be acted on. Not paranoia — standard practice in any serious communication plan.
OPERATIONAL NOTES
Radio discipline: Keep transmissions short and to the point. Identify yourself. Confirm receipt. Do not tie up channels with conversation when information exchange is the goal.
Battery management: In a sustained event, radio battery life determines communication capability. A charging schedule — solar during the day, use during key communication windows, store charged — extends operational time indefinitely. Know your battery life for each radio in your inventory and plan accordingly.
Antenna improvement: Almost every radio’s performance improves significantly with a better antenna. A $15 external antenna connected to a GMRS handheld radio doubles or triples effective range. A properly constructed wire antenna for a ham radio makes the difference between local and regional coverage. Invest in antennas.
Monitoring vs transmitting: A radio that is receiving costs far less battery power than one transmitting. In a sustained event, spend most of your radio time listening. Transmit only when necessary. You learn more from listening than from talking.
Information is infrastructure. The ability to receive and transmit accurate information about conditions — road status, medical resources, community security, weather, utility restoration — is as valuable as food or water in a prolonged event. A household that knows what is happening is making better decisions than one operating on rumor and assumption.
For the Faraday cage that protects this equipment from EMP, see Faraday Cage Build in DIY Schematics. For the first 72-hour communication priorities, see First 72 Hours. For community-level coordination, see Community Defense Strategies.