I was just reading this article about a recent simulation by NYC of a small yield nuke in Times Square.

To me, the most interesting part of the article was the suggestion by the emergency managers that radio, particularly battery-operated radio, would be the go to form of communication when power and cell towers are knocked out over a wide area.


I'm listening to my Giants in the World Series on my little portable radio right now. Down 7-2 now...

What to put in your fall out room. The battery operated radio does indeed get a mention.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6U9T3R3EQg&feature=player_detailpage#t=1362

An ex surplus NATO IPK, sand bags and a shovel might be worth having as well. By pulling up the floor boards on a ground floor house and to start digging a trench. Use the earth to fill up the sand bags to cover over the IPK tarp covering the slit trench.

Loved the 'Old-fashioned battery powered radio'... ..and the Government official announcements have already previously been recorded on Vinyl 78 records.

The poor iPhone and iPad user. No inbuilt FM radios for you!

I seem to be noticing a trend. Folks don't seem to know what Vinyl or even Compact Disk is. I have even heard someone recently who didn't know what a land line telephone was. Analogue radio such as commercial FM, AM and SW might be a mystery to them as well.

I have this vision of folks attempting to contact their Internet Service provider in Bangalore or Manila whilst looking at the Mushroom cloud trying to find out why their iPad doesn't get Facebook or Twitter anymore with only an hour or two before the nuclear fallout starts raining down...

I've added a cheap amateur radio HT with FM (but not, unfortunately, AM) broadcast receive capabilities to my laptop bag -- I already had one in each BOB. It's small, got great battery life, it was an easy addition.

GP-5 DSP General Purpose Radio is a pretty good radio. Good coverage for a small radio: FM: 87 – 108 or 76 – 108 MHz; MW/ AM: 522 - 1620 (9K tuning step) or 520 – 1710 kHz (10K tuning step ); SW: 2300 – 21950 kHz;LW frequency: 150 – 522 kHz (available for 9K tuning step only). Runs on three AA batteries which can be recharged while in the radio via 5V USB. I like it.

But it's hard to beat a small AM/FM radio to drop in your kit for emergencies.

I reviewed that radio at http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.ph...true#Post264506 .

Good review. That external AM antenna is great, it really helps clean up the signal and bring in a weak signal. I bought a second.
I also had a couple of the earlier GP4L radio, gave one to my brother, kept one still sealed in the environmental packaging.

I would be surprised if AM stations stayed up very long. FM has way more listeners so way more advertisers and therefore way more $ to be lost if they go down. I would bet they have way more fuel for their backup generators.

True, but AM radio works better over longer distances and so you may be more likely to hear the news you need from a station that's outside the area of the emergency.

If this HT had AM and weather radio reception it would be the ideal solution. I own an HT that does all of that (and quite a bit more) but it's a little too spendy to let it bang around in my laptop bag.

I have an mp3 player with a built in radio..works fairly well for what I need.