The best commuter backup communications plan (Part 1 – The problem, the bad solution and a possible solution)

As many people that commute daily to work, I take all the complex systems that support me for granted. I start my day in the suburbs of New Jersey driving my car to the train station, get there 5 mins earlier and check my phone to see how the line is operating. The train is almost always on time, I get a seat and enjoy my 5G connection to read the news to know what is going on, I check my emails, I interact with people on social media and when the train slows down, I use my GPS to check how far I’m from the office in NYC. 40 mins later I’m at Penn Station.

In 1h I exchange a lot of information and a question comes to my mind. What happens IF all these complex and inter connected infrastructure fails? How do I check what is going on, how do I check what route I should take to get back home? And most importantly, how do I keep in touch with my friends and family to check if they are ok?

As an amateur radio operator for a few years, the answer seems easy. I just use a radio. The tool to solve most of the communication challenges is easy to define but the know-how is the most critical aspect. Just because you own a hammer, it doesn’t mean you know how to build a house. The monumental communication tasks that we perform from the toilet look like magic due to the heavy layers of technologies operating in perfect synchrony popping all you need in the palm of your hands. This magic also distract us from remembering phone numbers, knowing where we are and sometimes even how to effectively communicate with another human being right in front of us.

Since my commute takes one hour and I usually solve my Wordo, check all my social media, weather etc in 10 mins, I dedicate the remaining of the time to develop a framework to effectively locate MYSELF, inform MYSELF and communicate with others with MY OWN means.

I want to share with you the tools and most importantly the know-how to at the same time to structure my thinking and to learn from NEGATIVE feedback because I was born in the 80’s and this is how I learn faster and more effectively.

First let me eliminate the stupid ideas. HF is not the solution for sure. HF needs too much equipment and too much knowledge to make it work and we will not accomplish anything carrying a 100 pounds of equipment or finding a place to hang an end fed antenna in an emergency. Most of us can’t do it properly not even when we have all time and tools available.

Next obvious answer is to carry a “high quality” HT with the local repeaters preprogrammed and try to reach one. Problem is… how do you align with whoever is trying to talk to you the frequency, time etc… Other thing is, there is no “voice mail” so even if your equipment works and does everything right, these 2 things need to be happening at the RIGHT TIME and in the RIGHT PLACE. Too many factors so this would be a possible BUT “unlikely to work” solution.

We are trying to mitigate the RISK of something else to fail and just as a reminder: “Risk is the combination of likelihood and severity.” per Dr. Google. Adapting this to our scenario, likelihood would be related to the amount of times you would need to perform a task correctly and the severity would be the damage to the final goal if something doesn’t work properly.

With this principle in mind, we narrow down to a communication system that allows you to acquire information as fast as possible verbally (via FM radio, people talking in local repeaters, emergency agencies etc) and at the same time to send messages that are “stored” in text so there is a logging system with the message itself, the time and the location. The system needs to be compact, operate with low power consumption (QRP) and relatively easy to operate, even better if it can have redundancy to make sure we connect 2 points via multiple routes and alternative ways.

Now let’s get closer to a possible solution: APRS using a USBC chargeable HT + a simple cable. This is one of the best solutions that could work in easily and effectively. 5W can reach 100 miles easily with no barrier and in 2m frequencies (144 MHz) it can get far even in the middle of buildings.

If you keep an old smartphone in your house connected to a radio and a battery eliminator, you can even have an iGate, Digipeter with the IGATE2 PRO APP. No power, no problem… with simple battery banks AND/OR small solar panels, you can get days of reliable communication that is logging all communication traffic that it can receive. 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=adn.IGate2.Pro&hl=en_US&gl=US