WRZP437

Not exactly an SHTF situation, but I think of a day like today that we had in Ohio. Between 4:30 and dawn this morning at least 5 confirmed tornadoes touched down, some close to friends. Thankfully most of the damage was property, though I haven't heard of injuries or loss of life. Normally this is a late in the day thing, but hearing tornado sirens at 5:15 in the morning is strange.

Foxtrot Alpha Romeo Tango? Free Air Radio Transmissions?

My local GMRS repeater announces its name every 15 minutes via Morse Code, so it's a nice reminder to announce your call sign so the F-C-C's doesn't start knocking on your door asking to speak to the manager or sending strongly worded letters to the effect.

I'm going over to my mom's I think for that. Where I am is not quite in the path of totality, but her house will be for sure.

It just seemed like a good tool to have for comms when needed. I've talked a little bit on the local repeater, used the radio for listening to the weather station when we've had weather coming in and the local ham club's 2m net. I did make my mind up, hopefully this year I will go for a Technician license, maybe just go straight for a general with a bit more studying.

I've not had any issues getting my TD-H8 to transmit, but only on GMRS. I will say it does seem to have a really good receive, well, if anything it's better than my Baofeng UV-5R variant. I do not see anything about this being a superhetrodyne receiver though. I mostly have been using the TD-771 Antenna that came in my bundle.

TBIs? One of my good friends is a retired 13F and his recommendation is don't play with bombs between his injuries and burn pit exposure.

I'm in a relatively low winter precipitation area, frequently over freezing in the winter but not by much. I'm actually close to a lot of towers and there's a number of taller buildings relatively close

I'd even think now a solar backup systems could be fairly feasible for some repeaters given some battery reserves, though there's probably a short life on those in a prolonged power outage situation.