EMCOMM Basic Facts

Minimal. Individual Preparation for Emergency Radio

Disasters can happen at any time and without warning. With minimal effort, and ultimately without serious costs, you can prepare for a failure of the infrastructure. A few carriers of water, a gas camping stove and some canned goods are a start. I have summarized further information here (German).

As a radio amateur, you should go a few steps further, even if you only have a handheld tranceiver because of antenna problems: With a battery for 20 EUR plus accessories such as charger, possibly DC converters and connection cables, most of us can already reach at least one relay and do 20 days on standby – an hour a day. More detailed information on the dimensioning of a radio emergency power supply can be found here (not yet translated).

The connection to the outside

A few years ago, the electricity in Berlin-Köpenick failed for 32 hours. On YouTube you can find a lot of reports with Stromausfall Koepenick. The biggest problem of most residents was uncertainty. If you did not have a radio receiver with battery, you were in the dark in every respect. You didn't even learn that 5 km further everyday life went quite normally. You would only have had to bike a few km to make calls with your cell phone and to shop as normal.

With such limited power outages, you can get local information as a radio amateur via the next relais. To do this, the relay needs an emergency power supply. I think this is one of the more important tasks of the ham radio clubs.

Neighborhood Aid

In the event of a power failure, the telephone fixed network immediately fails. At best, the cell phone networks are functional for a few hours. This means that many neighbors get problems, especially older people and those in need of care. They are without any information, may be panicked and cannot call help. Here license-free handheld two-way radios can provide valuable help.

From own experience I know that many fellow citizens do not want to deal with such topics. In the worst case, you are pushed into the right, unsavory corner without ever having had political discussions with these people. I therefore went the way to pack and store a few PMR devices and power banks in my version of emergency radio cases. I recharge the power banks and radio units twice a year.