Letter Reply: Communications For The Bug-Out Bag
Hey, just want to tell you that was a nice, well written article on bug-out radios (which also applies to retreat radios). It wasn’t so far in depth as to lose people and wasn’t too high level to be useless. Honestly, it was just right.
At my retreat, we chose to use FRS radios. The reasons were:
1) You can get them real cheap right now used on eBay. The price for used FRS is so low, its easy to buy extras to cover possible breakages. We also all got the same model, so we’re compatible for parts.
2) Since this retreat is under 100 acres, we didn’t need the range of GMRS. FRS covers our entire retreat, plus the neighboring properties we collaborate with on security. Keeping the range down is better for OPSEC and extends battery life.
3) We did pick up a pair of GMRS/FRS base stations to run in our TOC. One is kept on the FRS “channel of the day” we use at the retreat, the other is set to scan GMRS/FRS channels for radio chatter in our area. They can also be used to communicate with neighbors outside the FRS range. We also keep a CB in the TOC for that purpose.
It may sound like we are going to be radio-chatty, but it’s far from the truth. We’re all ex-military and have OPSEC drilled into our heads. We have a dozen surplus field phones that will actually be our primary comms to our OP/LPs and immediate neighbors (with an old surplus SB22 switchboard in the TOC tying them all together). The radios are only for when a field phone isn’t available (such as when patrolling), or if things suddenly “go tactical”. And even then the cadre is already well drilled in only broadcasting when necessary and using brevity codes.
The one problem we haven’t solve yet is battery recharging. It’s simple if you’re talking one or two radios, such as in a bug-out situation like your article described (there are good portable solar chargers available). But in the case where you’ve got a full cadre, with all adults carrying a radio on their belt, with TOC base stations running 24×7, and with other devices also needing batteries (AA’s for night vision, D’s for field phones, etc.), you can imagine how the small 4-battery solar chargers aren’t nearly enough.
What we need is a design for a large-volume battery charger that runs off full-sized solar panels. The design should:
1) Hold 18-24 batteries for simultaneous charging.
2) Charge all batteries in under 10 hours, thus completing the charge in one day.
Problem is:
1) What size solar panel?
2) What electronics are needed to first step down the solar panel’s power to charge 1.5 volt batteries, and second to control potential over-charging?
With this design, retreats can build one, two, or more of these recharging arrays … depending on the number of 1.5 volt batteries they need recharged in a given day.
It’d be great if you would put this out to your readers as a challenge. There’s bound to be a smart electrical engineer out there who can design it for us and let you post the design on your web site. I put this same challenge to “the other survival site” last fall, but never got a response. I think it would help out a lot of folks.
Last thing, it might be good to mention to your readers that the privacy codes available on most FRS radios don’t actually hide your chatter. They actually filter out everyone else’s chatter on that channel who isn’t set to your privacy code, so you don’t hear them. It does nothing to “privatize” your own broadcasts. If someone sets their privacy code to “0″ (no privacy code), they will hear all chatter on that channel, regardless if the others have a privacy code set.
Well again, good article on Bug Out Radios! Appreciate it if you would put the large-volume solar battery charger challenge out to your readers … let’s see what they come up with.
Cheers,
Paul
February 8th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
Hey survivalist blog, nice post, to answer your letter writer, the best thing to do is build an off-grid solar system for charging those radio batteries, get a few 100 watt full sized solar panels, two 6 volt golf cart batteries (new or re-conditioned)wired in series to create 12 volts, a 30 amp charge controller and an 800 watt inverter for an RV. You would be charging your 1.5 volt batteries with batteries, and all you would have to do is plug them in just as if you were home. This system would actually be able to run other small AC appliances as well, Running these directly from a solar panel/ module would require much work, you will not be able to step down that much without the use of many transformers and charge controllers, (battery chargers for 1.5 volt batteries are rated in mili amps. etc.) If the letter writer will contact me at NY Homesteader.com or nyhomesteader@hotmail.com I can send them a diagram and any other questions they might have, keep in mind there are lots of other variables and questions I would need to have answered to design a system, days of autonomy, rate and depth of discharge, load etc.
BTW I am an IREC/ISPQ certified photovoltaics installer/designer so I do know how to do it. also this type of a system could easily put on a moveable cart to get the best sunlight possible and be relatively portable!! get in touch with me !!!
Regards,
Rich @ NY Homesteader
February 9th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Tyhe last job I had before retiring to my millions from Soc. Sec. was at an auto parts shop. They have a battery recharcing and maintanance tool which will keep a charge on many different size batteries from twelve volts and down but I am not sure about the D's etc.,etc. but it might be something to check out.
February 11th, 2010 at 5:42 am
The sender needs to specify the amp-hours for the battery as well, otherwise I don't know how many watts of power it takes to recharge each battery.