Before you buy a two-way radio

By WND Staff

© 1999 Michael S. Hyatt

Before you rush out and purchase a bunch of fancy communications
equipment, you need to determine your communications needs and decide
what you want to accomplish. To do so, follow these steps:

  1. Make a list of the people you want to stay in touch
    with in an emergency.     This will undoubtedly include family members,
    business associates, church friends, and neighbors.

  2. Determine what it would take to stay in touch with each
    person.     For example, to stay in touch with my parents who live in
    another part of the country will require an Amateur Radio. To
    communicate with my fellow church members who are scattered over a wide
    geographic area may also require the same. However, I can use either
    Citizen’s Band (CB) or Family Radio Service (FRS) radio to talk to the
    neighbors in my subdivision.

  3. Consider your resources. Make sure that you attend to
    first things first. As important as staying in touch may be, it’s not as
    important as food, water, and shelter. Make sure you take care of those
    things first, before you blow a bunch of money on high-tech
    communication gadgets. If you have less than $100 to spend, get a simple
    AM/FM radio that will run on solar power or via a hand-crank mechanism.
    If you have a couple of hundred dollars, you can add a CB or FRS radio.

  4. Get a commitment from the people you want to talk to. It
    won’t do you any good to buy a radio if the people you want to talk to
    don’t have one. Duh! That’s why buying a radio is often a group
    decision. It’s best if you are using similar equipment so you can help
    one another when there are problems.

  5. Develop a communications plan. How often to you want to
    talk to the people in your network? What are your procedures and
    protocols? These are things you need to figure out together, long
    before you are in the middle of a crisis.

  6. Run periodic test drills. Take a page from the military:
    practice, practice, practice. You want a system you can depend on in an
    emergency. The only way to do this is by getting comfortable with it
    before you need it.

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