ahaaaa and look what pops up in my wife’s inbox
tx @ebendl - there are lists a-plenty out there. i try to draw up something with locally available stuff and yet it depends on each individual. there seems to be a ‘prepper’ in all of us, what is needed is guidance and conscientization [bewusmaking], awareness and common sense - 'n bêkvol - so for instance being on this forum is already a ‘prepper’ instinct… a lutta continua 
OK so sorry to resurrect this a bit.
I’m starting to investigate / look into doing a bit of basic prepping. One area that I’m relatively clueless is in the area of HAM radios - figured I need something to keep in touch with the family (closest is ~2.3km as the crow flies, but rest is as far as 20km, all in Pretoria, so heavy urban area).
Where does one start?
As with all things like this you must have an idea about what distance you’re wanting to cover…
I picked up a SSB radio someone chucked out (Kenwood TRC70)
I have never switched it on but hey, anybody out there??
At this point I’m looking at something like this: Waterproof Ham Radio 9R interphone UV-9R Walkie Talkie | Buy Online in South Africa | takealot.com
The idea is to be compliant as a PMR (Public Mobile Radio) user (e.g. use one of these frequencies: PMR 446 (Licence Exempt 2) | Radio Frequencies used in Cape Town and South Africa) at 0.5W which is license free as far as I know.
If the popo then hits the fan, I can reprogram the radios to boost the output and hopefully get a further range.
I might also look at external antennas.
m’thinks if the popo hits the solar powered fan compliancy will start to become rather relative 
edit - any thoughts on the ability of inverters to handle emp?
EMP from a CME, you have to put them in a faraday cage to protect them, and the radios …
Military-grade hardware probably would be protected if designed for it.
Victron was going to test that … not sure.
Titbit: One of the last things to stop working is the SMS’es system when the cell networks are overloaded, or partially damaged. Read some speculation on that.
There is a nice EMF testing chamber in Groningen, yes, but it is for testing the emissions of the equipment, not for it’s ability to withstand such emissions.
Although… are you guys worried about the minister of electricity coming by with a mobile EMP-generator and ensuring equality for all?
No, USA has a fear of a nuclear blast in space, to create an EMP.
SA, not so much … but a CME could cause havoc, like when we see Northern Lights (Aurora) in SA, oh boy.
now look at this… one minute after ordering the price jumped to R1799 [for two] and a ‘dealer out of stock’ notice was placed… so most probably they will inform me that they cant deliver …
Ugh, sucks. Not as if I ordered at all.
… at 1400 for two - i couldn’t resist 
Even for the single, it looks like the price used to hover around R800 for most of last year, just the last few months it went up. I am guessing this thread had something to do with that…
indeed, man’s social and emotional memory being equal to or less than 1 generation makes for rather slow progress [if at all?] - like fleeing to mars instead of getting to grips with terra firma 
a truism comes to mind “Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.” … eish
or in less doctrinal parlance we tend to forget why the grass is greener in yonder valley 
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Yup. Which is why I think the “doctrine of perpetual progress” (as some have called it), is false. Look, some of it rings true. Once we had slavery, now we (mostly) don’t. Once women couldn’t vote, now they can. We can easily think of a dozen examples of things that used to be bad, that are now better, but if you conclude from that that things never regress… you would be wrong.
What irks me even more, is that the very people who believe in the doctrine of perpetual progress, are often the first to hound someone out of a job for something they posted on twitter a decade ago. Because, you see, society is perpetually making progress, but people aren’t.
:
now there’s a bubble of hot air if ever there was one - sort of theological, philosophical and social darwinism - a concept ignoring ALL scientific and logical [not always the same hehehe] ‘proof’, just reflect on the reality of newton’s 2nd law of thermodynamics… or has the apple changed direction or is it falling slower, nay levitating
akin to many a false prophet shouting peace, peace, when there is none.
pax
g
yip, @tinuva - seems i will get my two radios after all, i pity all those having forked out nearly 2k for one…
interesting to note the name of the guys providing it
edit
seems there is somewhere an algorithm pushing your name very effectively when it comes to takealot price fixing hehehe, keep up the good work @tinuva 
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So I wonder. Is this what you want to do legal?
According to posters on 4x4community having the radios without a license is illegal, even if you program it to legal license free spectrum and 500mW ?
unfortunately, they link to a post I cant read: https://www.4x4community.co.za/forum/showthread.php/342338-Handheld-2-way-radios?p=4627347#post4627347