Bare Minimum Comms Strategy

these days a lot of people are finding out how important Communications really are and that's fantastic however there are still a lot of people who are really just not interested for a lot of people this stuff just doesn't resonate for many reasons so today let's create a Communications plan for people who aren't interested in radios something that works for natural disasters but can also work if that natural disaster results in government agencies preventing a community response and more importantly let's come at this from the angle of what many people have already done starting with the balang the balang UV 5r or its subsequent variants and modern offshoots are usually where most people start and there is no radio in the world that has generated as much debate as this one has this simple radio is the high point of the radio world and has generated a lot of controversy over the years without getting into the debate too much my own personal thoughts are that bangs themselves are not that much worse than other analog VHF UHF radios sure there's build quality to be concerned about but in 2023 things have changed quite a bit on that front and in my opinion a lot of the hate that bow fangs get really needs to be applied to all analog VHF UHF radios to me a top-of-the-line Kenwood or Yu is going to be used in the same way a $40 balang is sure a radio from a bigger brand is going to be a much better radio quality-wise but all analog radios suffer from much the same price problems and vulnerabilities lacking encryption being a lot easier to Direction find by a civilian force and so on but again we've talked about this before we don't need to rehash everything now the bottom line for now is that cheap analog handheld VHF UHF radios like the balang are here to stay despite better options being out there for the tactically minded we can Grumble about analog unencrypted coms another day right now let's talk about how we can accept that this is what people are using and work from that how can we augment a prepared community in which most community members aren't interested in upgrading their radios how do we bring people into our team who either don't have the funding interest or knowhow to improve their coms one of the best ways to do this that we've found here is by bringing in mesh tastic now mesh tastic has gotten a lot of interest in the Tactical Community as people begin to realize just how powerful of a tool it really is we have talked quite a bit about mesh tastic in the past so check out our previous videos if you want to learn more about it coming into 2024 mesh chastic is really some Next Level stuff it's not nearly as developmental as it used to be in the past mesh tastic was a bit of a project something for those that didn't mind tinkering with it not So Much Anymore mesh tastic has really become plug-and playay sure it's not as seamless or perfect as we might want it to be but considering the project is open source and built by volunteers it's outstanding and it's grown a lot you can buy pre-made mesh tastic devices already built that require no assembly or soldering by the end user many of which already have the mesh tastic software installed and perhaps most importantly there are now domestic American suppliers of various Laura boards arranged into kits so that you don't have to deal with sketchy Chinese suppliers if you don't want to these pre-built devices are a bit more expensive but you can buy them and pass them out to members of your community just like you might do with cheap handheld radios here's why Mish tastic is a fantastic supplement to any analog VHF UHF radio you might have a team or a Community running a mix of radios that are unencrypted if you give everyone a mesh tastic device here's what that does to your network the mesh nature of mesh tastic means that your range is vastly improved this means that everyone using mesh tastic has a much better situational awareness of the whole area not just the people that they can hear with their bow Fang mesh tastics map feature also brings a very civilian friendly tactical mapping feature to the table just using the standard mesh tastic app your community can have a very rudimentary primitive team awareness kit grandma might not understand how to run AAC but if she can send a text message she can definitely use the mesh tastic app which is a much friendlier experience speaking of the real tax Suite if your community is a bit more high speed you can use mesh tastic for sharing AAC data this is what I personally prefer so that I don't have to bring a dedicated radio and a cable for attac plus the handheld I'm carrying and since mesh tastic is Bluetooth enabled I don't have to worry about running a cable from my phone to a radio I can stick a mesh tastic device in my pocket or even velcro it to my helmet and have a really awesome mini AAC kit that has a really long battery life and is a lot more low profile mesh tastic also allows for encryption meaning that you can send passwords challenge codes onetime pads and other sensitive information securely over the network without worrying too much about somebody picking it up of course in today's world unless you are the developer who actually built the thing we always have to question how secure any technology really is I'm personally not sure that mesh tastics encryption can stand up to nation state level intelligence collection but I'm fairly confident that some random child with a Walmart radio can't gain access to my network but despite all of these really awesome features mesh testic can't really replace all radio communications in a disaster voice Communications are important as much as we might hate to admit it sometimes there just isn't an alternative for picking up a radio and verbally talking to someone this helps to explain complicated plans or in-depth information that can really only be explained by speech mesh tastic is text only so it can't really replace 100% of the needs we might have but again in today's world we have to assume that someone is always listening particularly to unencrypted coms that anyone can listen to but with mesh tastic you could fire up your handheld radio and speak to your team to explain something but leave out the critical details like coordinates challenge codes Etc this sensitive information can be sent via mesh tastic this is one good way to improve a network of people who are not going to give up their bow fangs but also aren't interested in doing more work to use their own tools more safely mesh tastic is now very simple and easy to use to augment traditional handheld VHF UHF radios in short you can use mesh tastic as much as possible but still entertain the possibility of using analog voice coms in a dire emergency that's exactly what I would do if I ran the zoo it would be easy for me to lower the hammer and say look if you aren't going to invest in an encrypted radio you can't be on my team that would be easy but it's not a realistic expectation just yet especially for larger groups of people if we pull out basically any leadership book we can see that voiding a large group of people that may have valuable skills is not a wise move nobody's perfect and a lot of people may have a flawed view of communications or they might understand the risks but they might not have the budget for more expensive radios if I'm going to to assume a leadership role I cannot callously discard people like this but I also don't want to catch an air strike because Timmy is using a radio from Walmart in this case I can hand Timmy a mesh tastic to use with his phone that he already has and tell him to only use the bow Fang in the event of an emergency in today's age we can't always get what we want and this also applies to more domestic crises that are sort of natural disasters we have to use the gear we have and mesh tastic is a great way to augment a team that is not as prepared as we might want them to be mesh tastic also allows me to act as to be blunt a tactical babysitter I can see where everyone is at a glance and sometimes more importantly I can see everyone else's battery level I know this sounds Petty but it is a reality of working with people who do not like radios dudes who get it understand that you've got to keep your stuff charged but sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get people to remember to put their radio in the charging cradle at the end of the day I have been in situations where I've got got to go out and clear storm debris or something and three of the 10 guys that show up have dead radios because they forgot to charge them before the storm once again among a dedicated prepared fighting force this is a nonissue but in the civilian World among a prepared citizenry or a not so prepared citizenry I really do find it handy to be able to look at my network and see oh Timmy's getting low on battery let me go take him a power bank right quick so if we were to do this doctrinally using the traditional plan framework I might make mesh tastic the primary Communications method and say a bow thing as the alternate for the contingency I can lean on satellite Messengers like garmin's inreach or spot devices now at the end of 2023 these devices are a bit controversial depending on your usage on the one hand these are a very cheap way to rely on satellites for communication theoretically allowing Global Communications very easily the problem lies with a universal concern within all Communications networks if you do not own the wires you do not own the communication as soon as you begin to use someone else's infrastructure you add in the ability for that person or entity to stop your Communications be it a telegraph wire back in the 1800s or the satellites orbiting the Earth today if you didn't pull the wire or launch the satellite yourself your comms are at the mercy of the entity that did we've already found out how vulnerable internet-based comms are to censorship spying and other nefarious activities satellite based comms also bring these risks along with intentional degradation selective availability is the overarching term for governments to intentionally degrade GPS navigation satellites in time of conflict this is why the military has special GPS units that can be loaded with cryptographic keys so that one day if they have to the US government can flip a switch and only the military will have access to GPS satellites because the signals coming into your garment device will be scrambled similar story with even private companies that cater to Communications like iridium or even starlink do you honestly think that the United States military is going to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into a satellite radio network that one man or one company has the ability to turn off no the US military almost certainly has total control over all American satellites if it really comes down to it How likely is this to happen well I explained this at Great length in our video on satellite Communications but honestly it's not very likely but in any case if it can be censored it will be censored at some point which is why it's not a good idea to rely on any satellite Communications in a more tactical role for semi-natural disasters Garmin devices can be a lifesaver I personally use mine for a lot of routine everyday Communications with people out of range of my own radios but in the back of my mind I'm always thinking the NSA is surveilling this and knows where I am and if I say the wrong thing on social media media the government can shut this down with the push of a button and if I'm in a situation where I'm getting shot at this device would be a great way to attract an anti-radiation munition of some kind all of these factors result in complications on the one hand the technology is amazing and the capabilities these devices offer are awesome but with great technology comes great vulnerabilities so I use satellite communicators often for perfectly benign reasons but I have a hard time including these much higher in my communications PL because I don't want to use satellites as a crutch or an excuse to not develop other more reliable less potentially lethal Communications methods which is why satcoms go in the contingency column again thinking of what I might do with a rather unprepared team I might distribute the guys with inreach devices among various groups that are running kind of poor comms or no comms at all if I need to maintain contact with a group in the next town over I can send a liaison with a SAT phone or a Garmin device to link up with that group who can serve as my eyes and ears for what's going on keeping in mind the privacy concerns that this brings into the equation if I want I can send onetime pad messages through garmin's messaging system you can do this uh and if you do this the only thing the NSA will get is your real name the the name that you registered the device under the location it was sent from the metadata from that device whatever it may be and who you send the message to but not the true contents of that message that might be a rather specific but sort of helpful way to use garmin's systems in a way that provides a little bit more security so let's take a look at what we've got so far we've got most people running mesh tastic devices for most comms handheld VHF UHF analog radios are the backup to this and a handful of people dispersed equally amongst the population are running Garmin enr devices now to round out our simple Pace plan here we can bring in HF radio of course depending on your skill level and experience you may want to use HF radio more than just in an emergency I myself use HF radio for information exchange and news reports pretty much every day however remember we're talking about most people here not just ham radio guys most people are just not going to invest in a license and thousands of dollars of radio equipment but they might invest in a simple shortwave receiver or a really cheap softwar defined radio or SDR adding in the ability to have some kind of shortwave receiver would be a great way to add in an option to the emergency column of your pace plan this is specifically why we created the ghost net so that people who do not have much experience or desire to learn radio stuff can still get good information reliably and easily of course there are other Radio Networks out there as well not just our own little project so having the ability to receive shortwave radio signals is pretty important on a more local level shortwave can again fill the emergency role for most people again let's think strategically if we have a community of 100 people you might have five or so high-speed operators with the latest p25 radios running encryption attack and a separate HF transceiver all that good stuff the tip of the Spear of the civilian radio world right you might also have 10 people or so with analog handheld radios and the experience to use them effectively if you were lucky you might also have 10 more people who have bought the radio so they've got the actual Hardware but they just either haven't programmed it yet or they just don't have the experience to use it super effectively yet and the rest of the community maybe 75 people or so might have nothing at all in this situation here's what I personally would do I would give or encourage the comms guys at the top here to get on mesh tastic this way your really dedicated comms guys and your casual radio users will all be on the same secure encrypted Network that doesn't require a license if possible I would encourage everyone else to get on mesh tastic 2 but I probably wouldn't count on it too much because again it is still something you have to buy and even if you set it up for someone else and you have to rely on them to actually keep it charged and keep it you know usable Distributing mesh tastic devices is sneakily a bit self-serving because now my own network is greatly expanded think about it like this when you give out bow fangs to a community if you buy like the 10 pack of bow fangs on Amazon or something like that and you distribute these to neighbors and friends in your local area that's pretty much it right you have to rely on them to turn the radio on and actually like exchange information if and when it comes down to it but when you hand out mesh tastic devices that's like putting up little repeaters all over town if you give someone a bow Fang and they set it on a shelf and do nothing with it both that person and that device are useless to your community but if you give a person a mesh tastic device and they sit it on a shelf and do nothing with it the mesh nature of the device still means it's useful as long as I keep it plugged in and charging this is something that's really super easy for people who are not into radios to do you can tell them to download the mesh tastic app you can Flash the uh firmware to whatever mesh tastic device they have give them a charging cable and like a wall outlet and just tell them to keep it plugged in 24/7 and set the whole thing up for them so that all they have to do is tap the app and now they're messaging you sure there are still some bugs within the M tastic system but this is a lot more productive than just buying someone a bow thing and telling them to keep it because I guarantee you despite what you might want to think a lot of times if you buy a bow thing and or or some other cheap analog radio and you give it to people that you want to stay in contact with when a disaster actually happens you're going to find out that they never actually took it out of the box sometimes even with all that has happened in our society so far even with the very fabric of civilization at risk in today's world this is still a bridge too far for a lot of people so keeping expectations realistic in this mockup scenario I would guess that about 50% of people in this community still will not make any effort whatsoever to prepare Communications that's quite a bit optimistic to be honest but here's the deal a large percentage of any Community is going to be extremely unprepared no matter what it's just the reality of the situation so for these people having a receed only setup or a small shortwave receiver can be a way for these people to stay informed being brutally honest someone who doesn't even take the basic precautions of understanding how to work a a a cheap analog radio at this point is someone who has demonstrated they are not really interested in being an asset to the community of course if you want to be a responsible Community leader this doesn't mean you can dismiss these people outright but it does mean that we're not going to prioritize them adding to our communic iations if they don't want to do it themselves if all they want to do is listen to our news on the radio that's perfectly fine but that's also really all we can expect from them sometimes receive only setups are the best for receive only people it's harsh but it's the truth 99% of public service is helping people that either should have known better or don't deserve it but we do it anyway this is something tacticool radio tends to not really factor into too much now all of this sounds cool right well there's a pretty big problem with with this entire system that we need to address in a more deliberate manner but for now the short version of the problem is trust this scenario assumes that you have a community of 100 people who are all of similar ideology or at the very minimum won't immediately try to kill each other when the lights go out coming into 2024 this is a very very big assumption that for most people myself included is just not realistic for most people they may have acquaintances in their immediate area who aren't exactly the kind of people people who you interact with too much same with co-workers who might be fine and a pinch at work but you aren't exactly going to give them your social security number in these situations mesh tastic is great with a couple of caveats bow fangs or other analog radios are great too because you can maintain an encrypted radio for your own family or team and use a cheap Bal Fang for comms with other people you might not know super well it's not ideal to run multiple radios so you might want to do all of this on the same radio depending on the features you have on your specific device but using mesh tastic is a great way to also set up a zero trust Communications plan mesh tastic devices now allow for multiple channels so you can set up a personal group for your friends and family and use one of the secondary channels as a local community chat of course the biggest concern is that mesh tastic broadcasts your GPS location so people who you might not know super well will know your exact location at all times times you can turn off the GPS in several ways depending on personal preference and which device you have some devices like the whis block boards which I prefer do not come with a GPS chip unless you put it on the modular board itself for these devices the mesh tastic app has to draw your GPS coordinates from your phone and turning this off is easy to do from the settings menu for other devices you can disable the GPS chip in a similar manner but all of this is honestly not needed mesh tastic only sends GP PS data over the primary channel so if you are using a private encrypted primary channel for close contacts or family you can create a separate secondary Channel which by default cannot be used to send location data in The Help documentation the configurations tips page specifically outlines this setup which is pretty handy for both having a secure private Network and a less private Network where your position is hidden all on the same device trusted contacts like close family members get the QR code for the primary Channel and contacts who you don't want to share your position with get this secondary Channel you can post the QR code for your secondary channel in a semi-public forum such as an online community group or a break room at work and so on in the radio world it is really really rare to find this balance of awesome capabilities and yet still be conscious of privacy so let's red team this a little bit and see what V abilities that we bring to the table for the average user of course we can't really be certain of our radio emissions without a proper forensic test but we can address some concerns that people might have for one using mesh tastic allows you to communicate with people who you don't want to give your phone number out to you can use the app and if things get squirely in the group chat you can always delete it from your device and start over much easier than getting a new phone number and this whole thing is off grid anyway the nature of the radio network itself is also pretty resilient to Direction finding because it's on the same band as devices like car key fobs garage door openers digital business cards things like that this coupled with the low power nature of Laura technology means that direction finding is going to be exceptionally difficult to do I know that direction finding is a big concern for people and there's a lot of Merit to that but it's 2023 and Direction finding is not nearly as big of a concern as the metadata being emitted by your device this requires that forensic analysis I mentioned but allegedly all traffic to and from a device is encrypted even rebroadcasts of messages are encrypted though for many public channels the encryption key is a default option in the app so it's not exactly secure unless you make your own channel and change this but anyway there is a pretty good chance that a powerful entity is going to sweat a bit when trying to find and exploit these devices as a reminder the US military currently uses goena Pro devices which are almost exactly the same thing just proprietary and very expensive but under the hood it's basically the same concept until we get a good third-party forensic analysis of the mesh tastic ecosystem we can't really lean too much on trust me bro as a source but my own backyard science has indicated that mesh tastic for me is hard enough for the average person to crack that it's not really a concern for me personally you can generally Direction find analog radio signals just by using your body and a radio antenna to isolate the general direction of the transmission this isn't super effective but it does work and it only takes a couple of seconds with a more deliberate setup fox hunting analog signals is a breeze even for the lay person for radio amateurs is actually a bit of a sport although probably not very practical in a non-permissive environment when your target is moving using Emissions Control procedures and generally trying to hide I am worried about radio Ham's Direction finding me exactly 0% I am worried about government agencies doing the same a little bit more but I'm not really concerned with anybody Direction finding my mesh tastic at the moment for that you really need some targeted surveillance and even then the mesh nature of the network means that picking out one specific node is going to be pretty difficult to do at least in theory anyway of course the metadata is probably going to give you away but again we're talking like really really kind of almost like pipe dream threats at this point you don't really have to be completely impenetrable from a security perspective you just got to be more secure than the next guy and mesh tastic definitely checks that block more practically mesh tastic and yes even the handheld analog radio can fit into daily life a bit easier than many other options the number one reason why the bow Fang and the various recent offshoots are so popular is due to price this means that I can throw half a dozen of these in a bag and half a dozen mesh tastic boards and store this in any office building in Corporate America if and when something goes down I can equip an entire office building with resilient comms for less than $11,000 How likely is this to actually work now probably not very likely due to the social degradation that we've seen in recent years which makes even the most basic Community preparedness very challenging but if you wanted to be prepared it doesn't hurt creating go kits is very popular in disaster preparedness you can take a bow Fang a charger a mesh tastic node maybe a small solar panel or solar power bank along with some instructions slap it in a waterproof box and have a really decent comms kit for cheaper than it would be to buy an XTS 5000 the accessories and the means to encrypt it with for dedicated high-speed teams this is probably a step down in terms of capabilities but for the largely unprepared masses or for beginner to intermediate users who are looking to expand their capabilities this is a huge Force multiplier and this brings encryption to a community and a market where previously there was nothing now Switching gears to another idea entirely this is something that we tend to neglect when talking about Communications and that is that radios are not the only communication tool we have radios are really amazing things and almost all non internet-based Communications on or off of Earth use some form of radio signal to get the job done however sometimes we get stuck into thinking that radios are the only option which is not true we can look to the history of warfare for a good example of this even in the US military the best equipped fighting force ever not every Soldier has a radio even in a deployed environment this is changing to be sure but for the most part in the past real Combat actions of conventional troops only Squad leaders or sometimes platoon leaders have had a radio in Russia this is still the case today as evidenced by the thousands of videos from the front lines in Ukraine confirming that a lot of Russian troops rely on bow fangs or cell phones in in actual combat is this a good idea well the survivorship bias would suggest that it's probably not but in war we have to do the best we can which is sometimes not good enough for our prepared citizenry perspective we have to realize that Communications is the overarching strategy that does not always equal radios for instance one of the most helpful aspects of pretty much any large scale disaster are message boards usually used for missing persons these boards always pop up around Aid stations or common Gathering points so that people can link up with friends or family they may have lost contact with this idea Falls within the field of communications yet we rarely hear about people preparing for this even the most Uber prepared comms guys rarely have a corkboard and some thumbtacks squirreled away somewhere but I tell you the guy that brings a box of thumbtacks from his home office is literally going to save lives and reunite families who would have thought that office supplies would end up being such a desperate need during a crisis specifically to enable Communications simple copier paper Sharpie markers crayons push pens string paper clips all of this would be greatly needed by anyone who wanted to set up a central point for communications between people that have nothing but the clothes on their back sticking with the idea of a central point of communications we can see that the choice of gear is not as important as the plan itself and here's something that you can do right now if a fire broke out and in your home in the middle of the night and your family had to make their way out of the home on their own where would you meet up for years my family had the very simple plan of meeting at our mailbox if a fire broke out and we got separated this allowed us to all find each other very easily in the dark and probably without any comm's gear this also allows firefighters to quickly know if anyone is still inside the structure which is a critical part of the scene size up that the first firefighters are going to do when they show up if they know without question that someone is still inside the structure they are going to take more risk to save life and limb in fact they probably aren't even going to start fighting the fire but rather conducting a search but if the structure is fully involved and they know that no people are inside it they might choose to move into a more defensive posture all of this is made much easier by simply teaching your kids to go to a specific point if you have to evacuate we use rally points all the time in the Tactical world but sometimes we for get to prepare for the most likely emergencies this is a prep that fits squarely within the field of communications yet it's often overlooked a slightly more Sinister version of this idea is to have a rally point in the event of a more kinetic action this could be a friend's house or a more covert location that you can rally at in the event that you suddenly find yourself without a front door the survivors of such an event would likely need somewhere to go that provides a bit more safety and peace of mind without increasing risk this may not not be that useful to everyone but better to plant the seed now for the future and since we've cracked this can let's continue down the rabbit hole and briefly mention don't come home signals this is more of a tradecraft thing straight out of a spy novel because this was frequently used by spies during the height of the Cold War the basic idea is simple this is a simple signal of some kind that when viewed by a contact can warn them to stay away from a location back during the American Revolution the Patriot spy Anna strong was known to hang out laundry and certain patterns passing information on British movements in New York City to General Washington spies during the height of the Cold War a commonly repeated anecdote of Unknown Origin mentions that there were so many chalk messages on mailboxes and lamp posts that spies sometimes got confused as to which chalk Mark was theirs and which ones belonged to other spies specifically when it comes to don't come home signals we see this in Hollywood quite clearly during this scene of the TV Show Homeland and in which the wouldbe terrorist quickly runs to place an American flag out which is the signal for another terrorist to not visit this is the basic idea of a don't come home signal something that can be seen from any Avenue of approach that can tell your family that you are under surveillance and that you should not visit that location at that time of course I would wager that no real purveyor of Espionage is going to be watching this video so again this is probably not going to be helpful for most people right now but right now now the average citizen had better start thinking about this stuff considering how things seem to be going right now the idea of passing a staya away message to someone or at least having the plan in place might end up getting a lot of use in the near future either way this is yet another non-radio based communication plan that rarely gets consideration keep in mind this is merely a suggestion of the bare minimum for those of you who are trying to prepare a community friends or family who are not exactly interested in radio stuff all of these thoughts are versatile and flexible at minimum having a bow Fang a mesh tastic node and a shortwave receiver will grant some serious capabilities that are not just handy for emergencies it's still kind of in the beginning stages but hopefully our work to improve and expand the ghost net can bring more daily use to radio can you imagine a day where we turn on our radio and get the news surprising concept right well we're getting back to that reality right now and I would hope now that shortwave transceivers are extremely popular those with the means to do so would start bringing good information back to radio mesh tastic is a powerful tool under the hood but on the user side of things it just looks like another messaging app it's not hard to set up and the mesh tastic devices that you can buy now have improved quite a lot you cannot beat mesh tastic for the capabilities it provides for the cost and ease of use by an inexperienced end user and of course cheap handheld radios are here to stay so we might as well account for analog voice coms in some way if you plan to make the jump to a digital radio or a DMR radio that's capable of encryption that would be great leaping up to a p25 radio with Hardware encryption would be an even better experience but even though we should all strive to improve our setup we just have to realize that for most of the US population these more advanced and costly options are just not feasible right now tools like satellite Messengers can be powerful tools as well but we always have to keep in mind that these use infrastructure that we do not control and is highly surveilled in the operational environment this might not be super great however in more everyday situations or everyday emergencies for perfectly benign use these can be really powerful tools to get your Communications off of normal cellular networks normally when we talk about radio stuff there are a couple of communities that weigh in on the one hand we've got the traditional amateur radio Community which is concerned with Communications and Times of emergency which are usually mostly natural disaster Masters on the other hand we have the military or tactical Community who is more concerned with Warfare or using radios in tactical situations these communities haven't really had much overlap until very recently I personally think that the Maui crisis was very good at illustrating that responding to a community disaster might be illegal authorities not activating radio communications procedures and actively targeting people trying to run supplies to affected areas like it or not in I certainly don't like it the dynamic between emergency services and the citizenry has changed now the average citizen has to think about Community preparedness at a time when a lot of entities are trying to cause them harm the plans and procedures created by the amateur radio Community are great when your government allows it but in a non-permissive environment the vast majority of emergency coms plans clubs agencies whatever these just don't cut it on the other hand the Tactical World off offers mostly small unit tactics or Communications for squad or maybe platoon level units which isn't necessarily the best if we're talking large communities here if I'm trying to work with a community of potentially thousands of people I can't exactly shell out $800 for a headset for each person in my entire County so the Tactical Community needs to get on board with the idea of larger more strategic Communications networks I personally think we're kind of in the middle open near-peer Warfare in the streets is UN likely to break out in the United States but the average citizen has certainly become a victim of the counterinsurgency doctrine that the US has developed over the past 40 or 50 years so we're not quite seeing tanks in the streets yet but the US is certainly not at peace either we still have emergency services being active during a crisis and doing good work but in some areas they're just not that helpful and and in some thankfully still quite rare circumstances they might be causing more harm than help this means that on the communications front we need to slip into new roles Citizens need to create plans and networks that can help entire regions but can also operate in an environment where they are being hunted we have to take the best elements of both communities the Tactical and the hams and put that Doctrine to good use this plan as it stands is quick and dirty using the tools that people probably already have to be perfectly honest I specifically made this video for people that have family or neighbors that will not be preparing ahead of time for any calamity during a time of Crisis leaders always tend to pop up in unlikely places and I'm hoping that this will assist those people to help organize their Community during a more extreme situation as things around the world become more serious more and more people will be looking for guidance on a lot of topics but especially subjects like Communications organization and Leadership sometimes we in the radio world forget that we all had to learn this stuff at some point and Community organization is not exactly an easy feat so we can acknowledge the problems that we face but both cultural and sometimes the adversaries that we're up against as a normal citizenry now but we can also take pride in knowing that we have a chance to do better technology has made it so that we don't have to spend a whole lot of money to be very effective these days sure it may seem like a lot of money to Shell out for the latest and greatest tactical gear but in terms of the grand Human Experience so far right now we're kind of in a pretty good spot for the capabilities that we can provide based on the risk and the costs that we incur for doing so so let's get after it and we can build our communities as best we can we're all in this together whether or not we like it or not and if one day comes when Communications are a little bit hard to come by well stuff like this is what we're going to need to do beforehand so that when things do take a turn South we're prepared and confident to move forward so thank you all for watching and we will see you next time and as always fight in the shad