Damn! I think you found your Christmas card for 2013. Dated August 3rd!
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This is one more item, if not on the list of topics in the S & P forums, to be prepared for. What if a severe storm comes in, power lines down no cell svc. The UV-5R while not a tier 1 SW device was worth it's weight in gold today. I was "in" on what was happening at least 5 min prior to the NWS issuing alerts. Those storm tracker guys / gals are right there, as it's happening.
you guys realize that's not a picture of hail, right?
well, the aug 3rd thing and all.
Yeah my company pickup has a dented up hood and a couple big spiral cracks on the window. All the weeds in the back yard were destroyed unfortunately my shrubs and trees were too, I think a tornado touched down about a mile or so south of me. Had to tell a roofing company vulture to get off my roof after it settled down. If he wouldn't have gotten off so fast I was going to pull my Draco out of my pickup fricken douche bag. 9 news was interviewing people in my neighborhood. It was wild hearing the spinning winds from down in my basement wondering if its going to touch down of not (should have built an ak while I was down there hahaha)
OK prepping time. Name some good inexpensive radios that I can use when this shit happens again. Because we all know it does. UV-5R Im looking up now. Any others. Or what would be a good all around emergency radio to have.
The UV-5R is a dual band VHF/UHF handheld transceiver. As such, you need at least a Technician license to broadcast, except in a real emergency. No license needed to just receive, tho. There are better receivers INHO such as the Grundig, C Crane, Eton, and Redsun models.
There are way better units. For the price point it's not a bad starter / easy to put in a BOB unit. I can see us eventually going to a larger base / mobile unit like you guys have been discussing in the S&P forum.
Yes the UV-5R is a basic unit but (IMHO) considering i have the small / stock antenna i was picking up ARES comm that was 20 miles out. It did what i wanted a basic unit to do, was on for 3 hours and had minimal battery drain.
The pros and cons of SW and hand held devices is better suited for the S&P forums. Hopefully this latest weather cell, which was a major front range deal, will get more board members to visit and participate there.