SW sounds good at first,i have a old Hallicrafters that i use to listen in with,but i could see the waves so jammed up in a real nation wide emergency that you would never be able to get thru unless you had a huge rig and kept at it day and night.for local stuff like a earth quake or storm SW could be useful.it takes skill to use SW,you can't just turn it on and start shouting "CQ__CQ!!!..and who knows the quality of the info you might pick up...