GMRS was built for this. No infrastructure, no account, no network to overload - two radios and a plan. Here's the plan.
Decide the channels before you need them
- A home channel. Pick one of the main channels (15-22) and a privacy tone, write it on a card, and tape the card to every radio. This is where the family talks.
- A fallback. If the home channel is busy or jammed, everyone moves to the fallback after five minutes. Say it out loud once; it'll stick.
- Channel 20 with the 141.3 tone (
462.675) is the GMRS travel-and-emergency convention. Monitor it on the road. In an emergency, it's the channel most likely to have someone listening. - Repeaters. Your local repeater may have battery backup and may not. Ask the owner - it's the difference between county-wide coverage and none. ChatterBack repeater pages have a place for exactly that note.
Set a schedule
Radios that are always on run out. Agree on check-in times - top of the hour, five minutes of listening - and turn the radios down between them. Everyone knows when to listen, and a missed check-in means something.
Know the real range
Handheld to handheld in a neighbourhood: half a mile to two miles, less indoors, less again in hills. A mobile in the truck with a roof antenna reaches much further. Don't plan on a number you read on the box; test it on a normal day, and write down where it actually works.
Weather radio
A NOAA Weather Radio on the shelf, on batteries, programmed with your county's SAME code, wakes you up for a tornado warning at 3 a.m. when the phone tower is down. Your state hub's When it matters panel shows the code and the frequency for your county. This is the single highest-value piece of gear in this article and it costs less than a radio.
Keep it alive
- USB-C radios charge from the same power bank as your phone. Buy the bank; keep it charged.
- A radio that takes AA batteries as a fallback is worth the odd shape.
- Low power (1-5 W) for close-in talk. Full power only when you need the reach.
- Keep the card with the channels in the go-bag, not just on the radio. Radios get reset.
Relaying out
If you need to reach someone beyond GMRS range - a hospital, the county - find the ham. Every SKYWARN or ARES net has a liaison who can pass traffic in from GMRS; your state hub lists GMRS weather nets where they exist. On the mesh side, a Meshtastic or MeshCore node passes short text across a city with no infrastructure at all. See Mesh in a grid-down.