I’ve started using radio’s, as an alternative to using cell phones, which are still prone to ’emergency’ alerts and whatever else the Government decides to do with my phone.
There are three ways you can go about using radio’s, if your inclined..
Option one
Buy a cheap set of radio’s -these will have a range of maybe a few Km’s at best, so not that great.
Second option
C.B radio’s -these have a greater range, especially if there is a repeater station near you, which will extend your range quite a lot. They generally have preassigned channels or frequencies
In NZ,
channel 11 is known as the ‘F’ or truckers channel
channel 24 is popular with motorcampers
Third option
Join a local Ham radio club and get a HAM (amateur radio) license. This means you can get all sorts of gadgets with a much longer range.
It’s pretty straight forward to get a HAM licence in NZ. It takes several days of study, followed by an exam.
It’s easier for younger people to pass the exam, as they just seem to suck all the knowledge up like a sponge.
It can be quite technical to set up the aerials and frequencies, etc and nature can easily play havoc with a radio set that in thoery ‘should’ work. It can also get very expensive if you buy ‘quality’ stuff. Bear in mind though, that you don’t need to be a tech head and go down all those rabbits holes (and come back out with an empty wallet).
You can simply get say a Baofeng radio for @ $100 NZ, and then put a decent aerial on it. These work Ok, but it does depend a lot on if you live in a hilly area and if you get the aerial up high. If there is a ‘repeater’ near you, you will have a much better range. (Repeaters amplify your signal and resend it over a much bigger area).
Getting good reception has a very old school feel about. It’s a bit like walking around with an old AM radio, trying to find the ideal spot to get that really cool distant radio station.
Most Ham radio clubs have a group chat every week for a weekly catch up, so it has quite a social aspect to it. (this would have been handy during those silly lockdowns).
In thoery, this older technology is obselete because of cell phones, but bear in mind that cell phones are useless without working cellphone towers as happened in the Napier floods recently.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/430355/napier-flooding-in-photos
Uncoffined 
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