[Guest]

It has been said that if you don't have comms, you don't have S$it. 8) http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2248841359

 

[bigchoad]

Well, you'll need at least one more, then you'll need a lot of wire to connect the phones
Major Surplus & Supply had sets of 2 Swedish (IIRC) field phones for $60 some while back. You still need wire though Speaker wire will work just fine so you just need a spool of 500-1300 feet and you're set!
It makes FRS a lot more attractive except that anyone cal listen in on your transmission with FRS/GMRS
There's always a trade off...

 

[Different]

Motorola T6300 and T6310 FRS radios have a scramble feature. Set those on Scramble setting 3. It works well. :wink:

 

[Crash -CAF-]

It makes FRS a lot more attractive except that anyone cal listen in on your transmission with FRS/GMRS There's always a trade off...

Garmin's Rino line of GPS/FRS/GMRS units have an encryption feature for the radio. It's not quite as crystal clear as without encryption, but still very clear and easily readable. With encryption selected on, my pals with other brands only hear my transmissions as garble.

 

[LT Shoe]

I was unaware that FRS/GMRS radios had a scramble feature. I guess I've been out of the loop. I will research radios with a scramble feature. Thanks! What about satellite phones... how secure, how reliable, how durable, and available are they? And would you/do you own any?

 

[slimshady]

IIRC, these GMRS/FRS "scramblers" are just speech inversion, easily defeated with a simple computer program or electronic box that processes the speech back to normal. Of course, anybody with the same model of radio you have will be able to hear it just as well. True "encryption" is gonna be expensive. I have seen some aftermarket scrambler boards that solder into a standard radio and are programmed with your computer and an adapter cable. These run about $150-200 each and are more secure in that they use a rotating frequency that is synched between the units. Harder to decode, but not impossible. True digital Encryption is pretty secure, but they tend to be in radios that have NSNs and cost about three times the price of a good government issue toilet seat!

Comm security takes many forms, depending on your needs. The speech inversion scramblers are probably "good enough" for most situations. A hardcore scanner hobbyist or a Ham might be able to decode your transmission in real time, certainly an alphabet soup agency will have the equipment. Most others will have no clue what is said. The upgraded aftermarket boards will probably lockout everybody but the alphabet types.

And there is always the old standby of talking in code. "Superman and WonderWoman, meet me at the Batcave. The Green Hornet is loose again! Spiderman out!" Only those in your group would know you just said: "Joe and Karen, meet me at the barn, the cow got loose again! John out!"

Haven't researched satphones recently, but several years ago they were a briefcase with a foldout antenna. Several thousand $ and cost a lot per call. Pretty secure, altho I would assume several radios in Washington are tuned to those things 24/7. IIRC, a major player in the satphone business was losing so much money on it they were gonna crash all their satellites and call it quits until the government stepped in and took it over, seems they used their service and didn't have a viable replacement. Info several years out of date, so things may have changed.

 

[yyz]

also there has not been alot said about the the other edge of comms is that if you get to using them there is the chance that your ao will be copromised. short transmitions with a alpha-numaric code will be aset to any comm as will click code for replys and other short bits. never transmit anything "in the clear" that you don't want heard ie... locations. the bigger the comm rig the more likly it will be detected. anyone with a derectional att and a fee hours of time can and will locate any fixed loction comm.
for me when the SHTF my main radio will be recivers in am and sw prefreably of the type that can be run by crank or solar.
when the SHTF you must learn to think like a rabbit not a fox.

 

[Crash -CAF-]

I don't know much about sat. phone technology, but it's commonly accepted that bin Laden stopped using his after we nearly got him in Tora Bora. So at least the govt. intel types can locate them.

On the use of short transmissions, the Garmin Rino will automatically update its location to other Rinos, which will show an icon on the display, whenever a transmission is made (the radios have to be within range of each other, of course). So that could possibly be useful to two or more people using them - being able to see each other's GPS location with just a click of the mic.

In any case, they're civilian radios, not military, so they're certainly going to be more limited in their ability to avoid detection.