Wow !! Where do I begin , LOL

I am an INTJ, per the MBTI classification of personalities. One of the distinctive traits of an INTJ is EFFICIENCY !!! INTJ people HATE wasting stuff, wasting time, wasting RESOURCES , ..etc.

A few years ago, I retired from work after 35+ years, and also my daughter graduated from college. Both of us have had accumulated a huge amount of papers. So, I sat and classified them. The papers that should have been thrown (God Forbid) were put in a corner, and I scavenged 8 empty cartons of A4 paper, refilled them with our "waste paper" , and stored them like a precious relic, LOL. Now these sheets of A4s are being used by me in the home office, as well as my grand son for his drawings and games.

I feel that my efficiency style will be severely challenged in an SHTF !! Seems to me the society around me is built on WASTING stuff in a not-so-acceptable wise manner. And after some kind of SHTF, they will continue to do so, not realizing that "endless" supply is disrupted, at least for some time.

So, if I do invite some folks to my home in a disaster, they are most certainly going to do what they do normally, wasting water, kids playing with all kinds of stuff, the thought of it gives me knots in my stomache.

Remember the Four Ps: people, pets, papers and photos.

Jeanette Isabelle

I have shortened the list
Pets are out of my life
Photos are digitized and stored on multiple media

this is why I have sun/crank/wall/battery powered radios.
(some of which will also charge a phone)

About acquiring information. Listening is far more important than transmitting.

Imagine having a receiver that covers almost all of the useful radio spectrum. Public service, ham, satellite, military, FM broadcast, everything.

Even if the information is encrypted, if you are familiar with the routine traffic loads, you will notice when the traffic load changes. In the military this is called operational tempo or OPTEMP. A sudden gigantic increase of all the local police frequencies may indicate that something "interesting" is happening. You might then switch to some of the local industrial frequencies like Power company or ambulance services. Local media frequencies like remote pickups or perhaps fire services.

Many of the digital services can easily be decoded. Paging, equipment service transmissions (river level, power monitors etc.) are easily decoded.

Many satellites are easily received. Weather sats. send color or enhanced color images directly to your receiver.

And the equipment is very cheap. Less than $30 will buy a small dongle which you plug into your computer. Download free software and you will have a very wide range receiver. Some cover from 1 Mhz to 3 ghz.

These are software defined receivers (SDR). Here is a youtube demo of some of the applications.

SDR Demo.

Amazon sells one here

Amazon

For non-computer literate folks the learning curve is high, but very much worth the effort. Geeks will jump right in and have no difficulty following the many youtube and other learning resources.

But this is not something to buy and hold until something bad happens. You will need to spend a lot of time learning your local electronic environment and exploring the technical issues around encryption, satellite tracking and other complex issues.

Information directly from the source is invaluable, but you must train yourself to understand what you hear and see.

Listening is far more important than transmitting.

Totally agreed Nomad.

For those whose technical proclivities do not run towards the intersection of radio and IT geekery (like mine do), there are a number of inexpensive receiver options that can pick up public safety bands as well as broadcast radio. Listening to ham radio is completely legal without any license, and can provide first hand information, especially if you're used to listening to it.

Having a receiver in a kit isn't nearly as useful as having a receiver and knowing what is best to listen to locally.

Agreed. As long as we’re talking radio receivers for kits ... I have a couple CountyComm GP-5 radios which “covers medium wave 520-1710 kHz shortwave 2300-30000 kHz and the FM band”.

The GP-5 radio’s “Easy Tune Method” will scan the local spectrum and determine which frequencies have energy. Then as you “tune”, it jumps from station to station, bypassing the static so you can easily determine which stations are useful without having to do the manual tuning.

I have two of these radios. The first GP-5 I bought didn’t have SSB, I only use that radio for local AM/FM stations. The second has SSB, so in addition to AM/FM, it’s more useful for short wave. Both have a standard FM telescoping antenna and an internal AM antenna. For improved AM reception there’s an external ferrite antenna that is attached with a 3.5mm jack. It swivels and is somewhat directional for better antenna gain — I like it. For shortwave reception, a long-wire antenna can attach to the FM antenna with an alligator clip.

No affiliation with CC, I just like the radio.

Awesome info, Nomad! I'll look into that.

I also like the radio .

My review from 2013: http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=264506 .

In light of these thoughts, for anyone looking for a new radio — Top 10 Shortwave Radios of 2019 — Video Review

The Tecsun PL-360 that ranked #10 is the same radio as the CC GP-5 we’ve been discussing although without SSB.

I kinda sorta like the Tecsun PL880, #4 on the list. It uses a Li-Ion 18650 as a power source and can recharge the battery with a USB mini input port.