A good friend lives about 12 miles away from me, and we have been discussing options for communications in the event of an emergency/disaster situation.
Assuming that phones were not available due to power outages or "all circuits busy" interruptions; and communication through the Internet were not available ... the only possibility I can seem to come up with to keep our communications in tact would be Single Sideband CB radio.

One of the few SSB radios that seems to be on the market now, is the Cobra 148GTL. It seems that radio provides 12 Watts of transmission power in the SSB mode. I would guess that level of power would typically cover the distance that I would need for the scenario mentioned above.(?)
I am just starting to research all of this; so any information folks can share about Single Sideband CB, it's range, radio suggestions, etc... will be greatly appreciated.

Short of a major steel or stone structure directly between you, and assuming both of you have outside tower antennas, you should be able to talk 12 miles easy.

At one time, I was really big into CB, shortwave and such, and we had a decent group around here, but once local internet access came to town, it died off.

Here's an old photo from 1993 of my "station", with CB's (base & handheld, scanners and TV and shortwave.)
I even had a marine battery setup to run everything but the computer if the power went out.



I kinda miss my CB days.

Ah the joys of CB radio, now that I'm a ham I really enjoy getting on the radio and "rag chewing"(talking for those of you non-ham types). We use FRS freqs for neighborhood to neighborhood comms,the nearest neighborhood is approx 1 mile from mine.

A CB with SSB will give you better range than the more common AM CB radios, and given decent antennas on both ends, and decent topology between you, 12 miles is reasonable.

A much better option would be to consider investing some time and getting your ham ticket. You'd have a wealth of communications options from local to worldwide. There is a learning curve, but, it's a lot easier now that they have eliminated the morse code requirement.

You can find good info on Amateur Radio at www.arrl.org

The Cobra is a decent radio as CB's go. My first radio as a kid was a Cobra 138. Still, once you get a taste of having many different bands and modes on the amateur bands, you'll find that the CB is not a very reliable communications service for anything but very short haul use. (Unless of course, we're at the peak of a sunspot cycle, and you're running a big linear amp with it, then you could talk skip worldwide. With an Amateur ticket, you could do that legally on many bands with a modest setup.)

Whatever you choose, it's good that you're thinking about communications with friendlies during difficult scenarios.

73's, N1GFS

If you are near, or on the water, at all you might consider marine band radios (vhf, hfssb, mfssb).


I am not sure what licenses or restrictions apply to them where you are.
I know that if you are on the water in Canada they want you to have marine vhf, so the license is very easy to get and I knew several people who relied on them for emergency use along the BC coast.This was even if they were on the beach.
Marine VHF gives you the marine weather too.

I don't think you even need a license in the States unless you travel into foreign waters. Not sure, but it is easy to check.

If you look through the Icom site you might get some ideas.
http://www.icomamerica.com/default.aspx
Some of the higher end Icom land mobile sets include voice scrambling, if that is of any interest to you.

There are a lot of other options that might even include HAM.

I'd also recommend a ham license. Not only can you communicate over such a distance, but you can also communicate with other hams who might be even further away. Of course, there will always be lots of other CBers to talk to too.

The big factors affecting range capability are the antenna and the terrain. Power is almost a secondary concern. As an example, I recently had a conversation with someone on VHF (about 146 MHz) over a distance of 20 km (about 12 miles). I was using a 1 Watt transmitter, *but* I was 100 metres (about 300') up a hillside. The other guy was on the flat. From the same location I can hit a repeater 80 km (50 miles) away.

I think your idea to use radio when the phones are out is a good one, but it's one of those things that you just have to try, since the specific location of yourself and your friend is going to dictate how best to do it. Both CB and ham radio are hobbies, so you can have fun figuring it out before you need to rely on it.

73,

A

I also endorse the suggestion to look into getting a ham ticket.
Some knowlege about radios is helpful so you can understand why 12w SSB might not do the job.

Antennas are extremely important. Moreso than raw power.
And if there's a mountain between the two ends of that 12 miles- the problem gets a lot harder.

Of course not everyone wants to learn about radio. Firestarters might be more fun (until you learn about charging up electrolytic capacitors and tossing them to a buddy :-)

That can't be stressed enough. The antenna system will make or break a radio setup.

Back in my business/ham radio days, I had enough equipment at hand to converse in just about every mode known to man, on any frequency from below 1Mhz to 300 GHz and beyond, from less than 1 watt to literally several kilowatts, from sea level to 14,000 feet. I've seen it all, done it all, and fully satisfied my appetite for playing with radio equipment.

Nowadays all I have is this crazy dingleberry pearl, which the company pays for, and a couple FRS radios. I no longer have a land line, although my internet service at home is wireless and is supplied by a WI-Max type interface, so no cables there either. I suppose if something went wrong and cell service and phone lines and internet service all went away I would be unable to communicate outside of my immediate area. In that case, I will head for the nearest Red Cross facility and get with the ERS crowd there and see if there's anyone left in the world elsewhere to talk to. Might be handy if I need to get ahold of the girls if the SHTF.

Back before internet, cell phones and satelite phones, HAM operators were my lifeline home when I was deployed. They were awesome and very helpful. For all those who used to do that, thanks.

It is a good system, and I assume would still work. Are there still networks out there? What frequencies would be best in an emergency? What is the most accessible and affordable system out there?

I once had a commo guy on my team who bet me he could have me on the phone with my wife from where we were (in the remote mountains of Peru) and with what he had (ANPRC-70 radio with kit). I was talking to her through a HAM operator two blocks from my house within 15 minutes!

I have been looking at what comms to have in worst case, and I think HAM is probably the most reliable and survivable. I would like to explore this option.