~Vanity~
As the title suggests, and as the current conditions remind me, I am looking to invest in comms this year... And I am completely baffled by the options.
I am not without experience in this, Having had some training by an old Elmer in short wave, and having been a serious bucketmouth back in the day, when CB was a thing. My best rig was a Midland made Sidebander, with a Siltronix Model90 VFO, and a couple bilinear amps co-phased... It's been a while, but I got some credz...
Now comes the problem. No doubt I intend to go full on HAM at base. That is the end game. But I also need to consider mobile and portables, hoping in the end to have reasonable compatibility across them all.
And a point to consider: I am not as interested in line-of-site power. According to my terrain (high mountains), I need bounce more than power. And therein lies the question.
I have already eliminated FRS radios... Line of site, low watt, UHF (no bounce)
GMRS might be a thing... Again, worried about bounce as they are UHF... I don't know. They DO come in both mobile (vehicle mounted) and portable. The portables are 5w or so, which is not great, but I suppose fair talking to a mobile in a pickup at camp somewhere near... say 2-5 miles maybe in rough terrain??? How are they portable to portable? Can they be jacked up? Can the mobile be bi-lin amped? can they carry a low freq crystal (talk to CB)?
FM might be a thing... Handy-talkies.... But they are not much around here unless you can tie to a repeater. I am likely to have this as an option, base, mobile and portable, as with the ability to use a repeater system (which ability I do have), there is really nothing more effective here in the mountains. But I am worried wrt the reliance on the repeaters in a SHTF event. Even in emergencies, as those repeaters are shared, and often commandeered for official use in such scenarios, and as I said, bumped off the repeaters, these are near useless.
CB is my goto. I know it already... Comparatively low frequency has a tendency to bounce around objects - not great, but better... I know I can jack up a sidebander to get serious emergency power to talk out of the woods, and skip has already saved me from a breakdown, talking to a guy in FL that relayed info to folks here by landline.
But while CBs are available, it is a passing technology. Maybe I am just stuck in the past and in what I know.
Lastly, Back to HAM. Ultimately, I know that is where I am going at base, along with whatever else, for the LDX - Communications with other parts of the country are necessary, and maybe even a trade stock... While I am sure mobile HAM is doable, I am less sure of its efficacy, and even less sure of portable units.
So any input from all y'all would be very helpful getting me on the right track here... I have limited funds, and committing to the wrong systems would be a hard failure to recover from, especially if the fail is not evident until in the midst of apocalypse.
TYIA.
