The Best Option for Regional SHTF Comms - No Random Contacts Series

In this video, we'll use a technique (NVIS) that's been used by the US Military for decades to establish local and regional communication on HF. If you need to talk to family within 30 to 300 miles stick around.

SUPPORT

0:00 Introduction
2:08 Demo 1: 223 Mile Contact
3:40 Demo 1: After Action Report
4:55 Demo 2: 40 Mile Contact
7:36 Demo 2: After Action Report
9:35 Demo 3: 45 Mile Contact
10:58 Demo 3: After Action Report
13:10 Lessons Learned
14:30 How you can do this?

RADIO SHOWN
1. Yaesu FT-857D (discontinued)

#thetechprepper #antennas #shtf #offgrid #emcomm #norandomcontacts #yaesu #ft857d

[kneze]

Great video! I've been practicing NVIS for years now and have found that MAKING tons of random contacts has been one of the best ways to learn about NVIS propagation characteristics operating in multiple environments, antennas, transmitters, power levels, modes, times of day, bands, etc. But I totally get your mission here, and great job at it - a network of folks is critically important for emcomm. VOACAP and other planning tools can be helpful to get you ballpark estimates but there's nothing that beats lots of direct experience. You're on the right track in doing this test! One thing I've found is that, more than power levels, mode matters a lot for NVIS - CW and JS8Call present a ~18 to 20 dB gain over voice modes, basically turning your 100 watts on SSB into an equivalent 6, 000+ watts using more effective weak signals modes!!!

[beemcbike]

We tried a similar experiment. 2 stations 30 miles distance. Mine on 2800 feet, the other on 1500 feet and separated by mountains 13000 to 14000 feet high. Both stations half wave dipol on 80 m 18 feet above ground. 20 watt output. It just didn’t work… untill we lowered the antenna both to 7 feet. We did it within the same hour. Vocap gave us the same conditions for both tries. 5 and 6, even with 10 watts. Radiowaves sometimes do funny things. Training makes you successfull❗️
73 de HB3XBL 👍🇨🇭

[mikemcdonald]

that was cool what you did with the audio and video there. I always wonder what I sounded like to the other people. Thats a good test to see what your audio sounds like. Thank you and thank your friend for sharing that.

[RodGriff]

No idea what language this guy is speaking. Came here to see if I could set up communication with my family. I now know the people I need to seek out when SHTF

[mannythehunter]

Used NVIS a bunch in the military. They are great in the mountains also were line of sight comms just don't work due to giant mountain sitting in the way. As the F1/F2 range changes throughout the day you will have to adjust frequencies.

[davidkelsey]

I have watched several of your videos and find your honesty refreshing. When you did a bug out man pack and found that your HF was lacking you called it a fail. You didn't edit and try to make you sound like a prepared prepper. Thank you for being honest in your assessment. It's a great lesson for all of us.

[condition]

I just watched your video and just wanted to say you can build a dipole put it 4 to 8 feet off the ground and get just as good of a signal or maybe better. I have the Cha MPAS lite and love that antenna. I do POTA once a week and it’s my go to antenna. I’m a extra class ham and I love the hobby but sometimes we way over complicated the hobby. You can build a dipole out of a few dollars worth of wire. If you have an old 50’ drop cord a little time and you can built them for free. Look online for a simple dipole calculator. Yes I have tried this and got excellent results. Just putting the info out there for folks who are getting into the hobby and don’t have $1500. Great video.

[phatforrest]

Gaston, big thank you for all the great videos. Getting out into the field, operating, and experimenting is the best kind of amateur radio. Keep up the great work, and keep inspiring others!

[thomasr.jackson]

Community building and training are probably the number one factors. Effective em coms requires organization and coordination.
More good stuff.

[Sean-AIEQ]

I've taken a greater interest in HF digital communications as a result of your videos. Now I'm participating in a weekly Winlink net. For this net I have been playing with different bands/modes each week. Always enjoy the videos and looking forward to the one on VOACAP! 73

[granitebuilt]

Currently using the Chameleon Emcomm iii portable as a base hf antenna and have been having lots of fun making dx contacts. I've been very impressed with the performance. Thanks for the video. Chameleon makes some excellent products.

[KARK]

Congrats on the short skip QSOs on 80 m. There are a couple of ways you could experiment and try to determine if the 40 mi contacts were NVIS or ground wave. First, try at different times of day on the same frequencies. If the propagation changes much, For example, if it is severely attenuated midday or in the afternoon, it is likely NVIS. Try reorienting your antennas so the end of the wire is pointed toward the other station on each end. With a dipole, that is a pretty strong null for ground wave propagation and I would expect it to be much more difficult to make the contact. Then turn the antennas again so they face broadside to each other's station. If it's ground wave, the signal should increase significantly. If it's NVIS, the signal should be the same in each orientation.

[bayoubees]

I recently activated POTA on 40 meters in the morning. My EFHW antenna was only at 15 ft peak, the ends of the antenna were at 5 ft. My initial 10 contacts were all within 50 miles of my location, with several being 30 to 40 miles. I was only running 20 watts. The system works and it's good to practice (train) where ever and when ever you can.

[steveschroder]

I like your objective, concise and organized presentations.

Not having a 60 Meter capability is a challenge. You probably would have had a better success and needed less power. There is less D layer absorption on 60 than 75/80.

Most "all band" antennas don't resonate will on 5 MHz.

You can send both voice and digital traffic on a 60 Meter channel.

FEMA and MARS use 60 Meter channels to communicate with hams and obtain situation awareness for very very bad SHTF days. Monitoring those channels could provide good intel.

Choosing to not have an antenna tuner limits your choices for 60 Meter capability.

A home built end fed half wave 60 meter antenna using a $35 unun and some wire between your poles, even with a cheap tuner would cost a fraction of the Chameleon antenna.

Its no surprise that a vertical antenna on 75 Meters would have an adequate signal at the takeoff angle for your 200+ mile circuit.


I will look forward to your future presentations.

[vironpayne]

Gaston, another excellent video. Yes, antennas are a big, big part of the game. +3dBr is effectively 2X power in Watts, but with a near omni direction antenna it takes +6dB (quadrupling power) change to double the effective range.

When you use antenna gain you increase transmit and receive passively. So, yes, the Hamsticks are compromised.

I am hoping to get back to 80m NVIS in a few weeks. Our closest distance has been about 25 miles. I doubt it was groundwave due to 25ft antenna elevation and strong propagation directly off the end of an EFHW antenna. Regularly I get 50mi with 80m NVIS.

Where NVIS and groundwave overlap there can destructive interference.

Also, NVIS antennas may be improved with a reflecting element on or near the ground. Mileage and configuration varies. I've lucked out with a chainlink fence as a reflector.

Another simplex mode to look at is 2m SSB with horizontally polarized antennas. On Tuesday evenings there is a 2m SSB net that has participation through most of Florida and parts of GA. The net control typically runs stacked loops. Other participants may opt for Yagi antennas.

Unless there is active VHF ducting most are running power of 100W-200W, but with that power with +5dBi antenna gain they routinely have 150-200mi range. If there is any VHF ducting their range is 300-500mi.

We have played with vertically polarized antennas and it is not as effective. At that point the benefits of SSB over FM become marginal.

You can get in the game with your FT-857D at 50W with a 5dBi antenna, but you will not have as consistent results for longer distance. If you go +9dBi and higher antenna gain you'll see reasonable to good results consistently at 50W. The 160W Mirage repeater amps are a popular starting point for power, if you want to run with the big boys.

The more you work 80m and 60m, I think you will find them more reliable than 40m, especially during solar minima. The rub being best propagation will typically be near dawn. The plus is effective power can usually make up the difference with 80m or 60m NVIS when propagation is not ideal. 60m the FCC limit is 200W. During solar minima power may not make up the difference for 40m NVIS.

Antenna restricted operators, especially digital only should consider dedicated small transmitting or magnetic loop antennas. If you are doing FT8 or JS8Call exclusively and you are antenna restricted loops make very good antennas.

Small loop antennas, especially vertically polarized loops, have both high angle and low angle radiation near the ground. It is one antenna for NVIS and DX. A vertical loop only needs to be about 1 loop diameter above the ground for both NVIS and DX. A horizontally polarized loop should be about 4 loop diameters off the ground.

Definitions seem to vary, but small transmitting loops seem to be defined as =<1/4wl. Magnetic loops seem to be defined alternately as =<1/8wl, or =<1/10wl. The 1/10wl argument as a defining electrical characteristic that works well scientifically, but its harder to build in efficiency the smaller the loop, and current and voltages go up with need for capacitance.

The MFJ small loop tuners that use wire for loops are 1/4wl. Their rigid loops are 1/8wl.

Small loops are a different breed of antenna with very high voltages, high current, and hi-Q/narrow bandwidth. With high current extremely low resistance is a major factor. Do your own research.

[libertyprime]

Really glad I found this channel. I'm into preparedness, and along with my father, got my technician license a while back, but haven't done that much with it in practice yet. I bought us both some cheap uv-5r handhelds, and I recently upgraded to yaesu ft5dr and started playing around with APRS a bit. But what I'm really hoping to achieve is a way to make contact with my parents reliably, even if external systems like repeaters are down. They live about 30 miles away point to point. We are in Ohio, so no mountain ranges in between.

I'm getting back into studying for my generals now, and I really like the concept of the portable man pack radios that you introduced me to. I honestly view all of this as more of an emergency comm tool. I don't have a desire to buy a ton of radios and equipment for exploring every corner of the hobby. So I really like the idea of buying a portable radio that does every band I would practically need for emergency comms.

I see that the 857d is hard to come by with it being discontinued, but some pages have redirected me to the yaesu 891. It looks like the difference between those two is that 891 doesn't do 2m or 70cm? I don't personally think that's too much of an issue, because my use case for HF radio is repeaters being down, and I would think that even with high power/good antennas, it might be hard to make a 30 mi contact over 2m/70cm without the use of a repeater? At any rate, the 891 is somewhere around $650, which is significantly cheaper, and my father is definitely only interested in terms of emergency comms, and has very little interest in the hobby itself. I was thinking of getting that radio for him since it has higher power, and could be used as a base station radio 99% of the time.

For myself, I was actually considering the ft-818. I do actually get out and backpack, and I'm also involved in our local SAR group, and we have been looking into a mobile base station radio for use in trainings/searches. Most members don't have their HAM license, but we operate on one of the business bands on the 2m/70cm band pretty much exclusively. So I believe, the ft-818 would do the trick on that front as well as my personal comms with my family 30 mi away, given the right antenna setup? Just looking on some advice to see whether my thought process is way off on any of this. Thanks to anyone who wouldn't mind a few words of wisdom!

[bruceforster]

I really enjoyed this video. I don't have much money, so I can't have the station I would like to....
I have an Icom IC-7200 (LOVE the Rig!), which goes to an LDG Auto-Tuner and out to a 1/2 Wave Dipole for 80 Meters with the Apex at about 22 Feet. That was as High as I could safely get up in our Cedar Tree, LOL!
I've had VERY good luck with this configuration-The Antenna is a home-brew that I built. I have worked 40 States and 9 Countries with this, running at 100 Watts. The VHF Rig is a Yaesu FTM-200D

[johnk]

Very good trial and error operation ! One thing I mentioned before was running a wire 5% longer than your antenna wire. Run directly under your antenna and laying on the ground. It is not tied into the antenna. It is only a reflector. It helps focus the signal straight up. This may be helpful for close in coms. It would be worth a try and see if signal strength improves. The Yaesu FT-891 is an excellent 100 watt HF radio for emcom base or portable. It comes in at about $640.00 and is currently available. Keep the videos coming. I enjoy watching and seeing the results you get. I'm glad you tried ham sticks. Wire usually works best and if you can't use a full length antenna on 80 meters, a shortened wire antennas with a coil in each leg that electrically shortens the antenna length may a viable option. These can be made yourself or bought commercially.

[DominicMazoch]

In HOA's in the Houston area, people are placing wire antennae on wood fences using electric fence insulators.

[TwitchRadio]

I use my ft 450D for my NVIS setup, from here in Tacoma, i can reach all 4 boarders and about 100 - 200 miles past thoes as well here and there.... Using full power btw.. but interesting Lee enough when you use 2 m Sideband (different radio), from my location I'm able to get up into north Canada Vancouver area and south I'm able to hit the outskirts of Portland and all the West Coast areas in Washington... While most of the west side kind of cuts off in the Olympic mountain range.. by the way I'm here in Tacoma