Tag Archives: radio

Icom musing

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So the Icom-7300 arrived the other day. It is, hands down, far more radio than I know what the heck to do with. First thing I noticed, though, was that the manual included with the thing was extremely lacking. Fortunately, the internet is a handy resource.

It appears that the 7300 ships with the ‘Basic’ manual…around 80 pages (https://static.dxengineering.com/global/images/instructions/ico-ic-7300_it.pdf) . What I wanted was the ‘Complete’ manual…which is around 180 pages   (https://www.icomjapan.com/support/manual/2271/).

Does a hundred pages make a difference? Oh yes. Keep in mind, my radio experience is virtually nil…but, like a good survivalist, I need to learn (and retain) the necessary skills to make full use of this tool.

I am, unfortunately, going to have to set up a small desk in a corner of the bunker and make a little listening station for it. This means having to, once again, re-arrange thigs and make some room. Truly, space is the final frontier. At the moment, all I want to do is listen. I am told that, since I am listening and not sending, pretty much any antenna would do the job. It is unfortunate that Ticom doesn’t live nearby since he’d be pretty much the last word on these matters.

Getting a ‘serious’ radio is something I’d been blowing off for, well, way too long. There were a bunch of reasons for this…none of them really good. The biggest was the expense. The bloody thing is not cheap at almost $1200. But I suppose thats the test of your convictions about the future: do you really believe that there are bad times coming that will be bad enough that you’ll need to have your own communications network? If the answer yes then you bite the bullet and spend what needs to be spent. Another excuse is simply that things like shortwave radios are low on my list of Uncertain Goods. To my way of thinking, which may or may not be correct, I foresee the availability of things like AK’s and 30-rd magazines being more threatened than the availability of radio equipment….thus, my priorities in terms of acquisition lean towards the things that I deem as being ‘threatened’ in terms of their availability to me. As a result, a very expensive radio took a backseat. And, finally, I’ve been doing the whole paranoid survivalist thing for over thirty years…but its only recently that my life has hit the point where I can afford (barely) such grand expenditures.

So, I’ll set up a small desk in the corner of the bunker, pick up a few support items, and start getting my brain up to speed on things. Part of me is looking forward to it and part of me really wonders where I’ll find the time. But…as I said…if you really think uberbad times are coming, well, then you make the time, mister.

Radio active

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I’d been wanting an Icom-7200 for a while…so long a while, in fact, that the 7200 has been discontinued. Sure I can find them used but I really hate buying a product that is used unless I am intimately familiar with how it works and how to check it out to make sure it works. This is why, normally, I have no problem with used guns…Im familiar enough with thundertoys that I can tell fairly readily if a used gun is good or if its someones problem child.

The Icom-7200 was supplanted by the Icom-7300. Ok, thats at least 100 better than the 7200, right? Let’s order one up.

It’ll be here later in the week. I already have a power supply and cable for it, but I need to figure out an antennae (a word I can never spell right on the first go) for it. At the moment, I’ve no interest in transmitting…but I have a keen interest in listening.

As was said in Alas Babylon, “But Sam Hazzard’s principal hobby was listening to shortwave radio. He was not a ham operator. He had no transmitter. He listened. He did not chatter. He monitored the military frequencies and the foreign broadcasts and, with his enormous background of military and political knowledge, he kept pace with the world outside Fort Repose. Sometimes, perhaps, he was a bit ahead of everyone.”

My interest is in listening…taking in whats out there, examining it, and using that information as necessary. Maybe down the line I’d have need to send rather than receive, but for now I simply want to listen. And, yes, I need to get the license to transmit but thats a project for later.

If anyone has suggestions (and links) on the subject, I’d be very interested.

Radio active

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I should mention that in addition to getting that Piece O’ Nowhere purchased this year, my only other thing I’ve been putting off is getting a decent radio. I wanted to get the Icom 7200 which seemed to, from reviews I’ve read, checked most of the boxes for what I need. Naturally, it is discontinued and the newer model, the 7300, is available. Although it is a radio that sends as well as receives, my main interest is listening. So, I need to add that, a good antennae, power sources, and a few other bells and whistles to my list.

My go-to for any communications questions has always been the fabulously informative and maddeningly evasive internet personality known as Ticom. Its not that he’s an expert on the subject (he clearly is), but that he’s an expert on the subject and also has the survivalist mindset…which means that when I ask a question he can give me an answer that might be different from the answer he’d give to someone who wasn’t planning for a descent into chaos and anarchy.

Unfortunately, Ticom seems to be a rather frequently moving target in terms of blogs and URLs. This is why, like Batman, the easiest way to contact him is to make your desire known and then he contacts you.

I think I asked him his opinion of the 7200/7300 at some point but I’ll have to see if I have that archived somewhere. I like to think he could look at the specs and just give me a shopping list of “Buy this power supply and this antennae”. Man, I wish it was that simple.

But, information is power and when the lights go out, the sirens are wailing in the distance, and you have no idea WTF is going on…being able to listen in on the outside world can be a pretty valuable resource. So, in a month or two, assuming I’m not dissuaded from it, I’ll start the ball rolling and pick up the radio in question and it’s ancillary equipment. Then I gotta convince myself to climb on the roof and stick an antennae up there. Not a job I relish.

Bag O’ Tricks – AM/FMradio

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Every so often I go through my Bag O’ Tricks and think about each item that’s there and whether it’s utility and likelihood of use warrants it’s inclusion.

One item that I keep that I never question is the classic palm sized little AM/FM battery radio. In an era where, literally, the entire collected knowledge of humanity is sitting in my pocket on an internet-enabled smartphone there is still a need for the simple ‘transistor radio’. (Although, to be fair, pocket radios have evolved tremendously.)

A reasonable question to ask would be “Zero, I have the internet in front of me, a smartphone in my pocket, there’s a TV in the breakroom, and my office plays XM radio all day. Why would I need a tinny little radio to hump around in my already overcrowded EDC bag?”

Electricity. Power goes out and your office loses its XM, internet, and TV. If its a widespread outage you lose your cellphone too. (Because although those cell towers are supposed to have back up generators and batteries.. well…they were meaning to get around to that preventative maintenance but got busy.) Or, if its a big enough emergency, the phone system will be way overloaded.

So what just happened? Why’d the power go out? How widespread? Is it the result of some bad actors? Is it just a squirrel immolating himself on a transformer? Don’t know, right? So…you reach into your bag, pull out your little AA-batt radio, and start roaming up and down the dial listening for news.

This isn’t theory, I’ve had that exact situation. I’ve been sitting at my desk, theres a snapping noise, and all the power in the building goes out. A small battery radio tells me a lot when I start dialing through the frequencies…if theyre all just static or quiet, then I know its a widespread outage. If they’re carrying on like nothing happened, then I know its pretty localized. Of course, in addition to a little AM/FM/SW radio I also carry the ICOM R6 (highly recommend) so I can keep tabs on the local cop/fire response.

The folks at CountyComm have an interesting little radio that seems ideal for the task. It’s not a $12.99 WalMart radio, but then again when the power is out and I’m wondering what all the sirens are about, I suspect I’ll be glad I spent the extra money on something like that.

And, of course, since this thing gets carried around in the Bag O’ Tricks it has to be compatible with the battery logistics for the other electronic devices (and spare batts) I carry. So…AA batts.

(l.) Icom R6…tiny enough for carrying around but has tons of features. (r.) Discontinued pocket AM/FM/SW AA-batt radio from CountyComm w/ earpiece. Always pack earphones…less battery usage using earphones. Both radios fir in the Pelican 1010 case.

Like the Icom R6, the AM/FM/SW radio sits in a little Pelican case to protect it from the rough and tumble life of being in a bag that gets thrown around a lot. Do not make the mistake of thinking that you can just wrap a radio in some bubble wrap and cardboard and it’ll be okay. False economy there. No one hands out awards to the person who made it through a crisis using the cheapest gear… spend the money.

And, as always, periodically inspect your gear! Check those batteries!

 

 

 

ICOM R6

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A while back, I purchased an ICOM R6 handheld receiver (scanner). I’d been on the fence about it because even though it was rather affordable at only about $200, it was still a chunk of money for a tightwad like me.

I wanted it because too often I would be somewhere and either come across some sort of accident or other police/rescue activity, or I’d hear sirens (alot of them) in the distance and wonder what was going on. Now, it isn’t necessarily that Im nosy (although I am) but rather if there is some Big Hairy Deal going on somewhere that requires the efforts of a large amount of overcompensated city employees…well…I should probably be aware of it. Chlorine tanker derails? I wanna now…now. Shooting at the Walmart and that side of town is locked down? I need to know. Car fire on the bridge downtown? Need to know. So..I picked up the R6. The R6 is tiny, which has some problems, but fits in my Bag O’ Tricks and runs on AA batts. I did a bit of research and programmed it to cover all the local police/fire channels, FRS, GRMS, and a few other useful frequencies. Sometimes it is very useful to know what other people are doing. Sure, many agencies use encrypted communications these days or some other method of defeating casual listeners like me, but…lets be honest….most cops and firemen will take the easy way out and that means just keying the mic and talking rather than remembering tactical frequencies, protocols, encryption keys, and which button on the Motorola turns off that horrible noise.

Biggest drawback is that because of the thing’s tiny size, alot of buttons do double or triple duty. Programming and navigating through different functions can be challenging with constant references back to the user manual. (Tip: keep the .pdf of the manual in your phone)

Since my bag is expected to get bounced and banged around, I keep the R6 in a little Pelican 1010 Micro case.. keeps everything safe and uncrushed.

One item I splurged on, a year or so after I bought the radio, was a programming cable and software package. Rather than go through the button pushing process, I just hooked the scanner up to my computer and loaded up the frequencies that way. Highly recommend.

Since the R6 runs on AA batts, it fits into my logistics plans nicely. The Pelican case keeps it dry and in one piece. And, when everyone is looking out the windows at all the flashing lights whizzing by on the highway I can get a handle on whats going on around me and adjust my pans accordingly.  Forewarned is forearmed and all that jazz.

Radio activity, Florida hurricane, flu musings,

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The girlfriend has a loaner radio from her ham club. We need to set up an antanae for it and since we were going to be doing that I figured I’d pull my radio out of storage and hook it up as well since both radios operate on the same frequencies (Mine is an RCI-2950dx…noted for its ‘modificationability’). For the antanae, its going to be a simple and cheap dipole for now since, well, I’m cheap.So we’ll do the math to determine optimal length, cut the antanae, connect it to the insulator, plug in the coax, set up the SWR meter, and, maybe, get the bloody thing working. Pictures? Maybe, if I can remember.

It has, however, come to my attention that I need to pick up a battery charger for the 12 volt marine battery I keep on hand to power this thing in a blackout. One BatteryBuddy added to my list…
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God. Hates. Florida.

One of the cuties on my friends list  rode out the hurricane in grand style….steel sheeting over the windows, generator and fuel, thundertoys, and she seems to have weathered it just fine. I’d love to post some of her pics but I gotta clear it with her first. However, she gets major Zero points for being ready and prepared. Coolest thing? She has no water pressure at the moment but she does have a full swimming pool…niiiiiiice. Why is that cool? Because, my friend, you then have several thousand gallons of chlorinated water to bathe and wash with…and flush toilets. Even with a some minor hurricane debris like a lawn chair or some shingles in there, as long as you dont have the neighbors dog floating belly up it should be fine for non-potable uses. And a hot bath is a fine non-potable use.
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Bird flu. Hmmmm. As I read it, the situation is thus – an extremely virulent strain of flu is infecting birds across Asia and is now showing up in Europe. Migratory and wild birds are transmitting it to domestic birds. The concern is when/if the flu mutates to a version that jumps from birds to human.

The great flu pandemic of 1917 (I think thats the right year) was the last time we saw such a beastie. My grandmothers sister died in that one. There were stories, some more true than others, of rail/trolley cars starting with a load of healthy people and finishing the route with a load of corpses. The advent of modern air travel certainly would make the likelihood of infection spreading faster even greater. Not much you can do for it except be prepared to isolate yourself from other people. Might be a good idea to practice the most basic precaution against any infectious disease: soap and water. And for the love of Crom dont put your hands near your face after touching money, a doorknob, a telephone or anything else that a hundred wheezing, mucous-dripping people may have already touched. Buy the yuppie bottle of hand sanitizer and use it.

Is a government enforced quarantine a likely course of action in this case? The current administration seems to be thinking it is. Now, think about this…when the government says “Everyone MUST leave.” like in Hurricane Katrina, what happened? Right. So when the .gov says “Everyone MUST stay.” what do you think is going to happen. Uh-huh.

Hand sanitizer, soap, bleach, repeat.
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This is more personal politics than preparedness but….if you have one of those Big Brother neighborhood watch cameras monitoring your neighborhood you should know that paintball guns are readily available from a myriad of sources. That is all.
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