5 Things needed for an Offgrid & Secure(ish) Comms Relay 

Ditto. The “fail “ videos are just as important as the “win” videos. The AAR’s are an essential element of both. The contact cards for trusted associates? Genius!! Well done. 👍 🇺🇸

Love the way you overcame real world problems with real world solutions!

I am not a prepper because I prefer to hide in plain sight. You made a very good point in this video where you need to communicate with limited or no infrastructure. I have been lulled into thinking APRS can send text messages but that is in flux. This needs fixing along with using winlink email because I really not not trust others to get messages to my family. I agree we need to keep names and numbers out of the clear to protect them. This is making me think I need to work on another way because I know it would be bad to have all my fine radios and not be able to get a message out. Thank you for making me think.

Glad to see someone using their kit in a way that recreates what they built their kit for. Your practice op ended up being successful, but failure isn't a bad thing -we learn from our failures and make sure we address the problem. This was a fun watch, thank you for posting!

Excellent idea to have a distributed "contact" card and a standardized data format to send information quickly with. Will definitely be adding these ideas to the toolbox. Thank you for the great work and video!

This is the model we practice, experiment, and train for. Something unexpected or unfavorable happens, we get into a situation and need to establish reliable comms to relay a message, initiate some kind of action, or both. Exercises that simulate reality are powerful learning tools. 73 and a great video summary.

Nice exercise. JS8Call is great. I recently got a USB GPS receiver for my laptop for secondary off-line time syncing and location tracking. There are newer versions of JS8Call with updated and expanded radio control protocols that can be found on their development forum, but it does meaning signing up for an account there to access them. And yeah, you're a brave man for running a long wire near high power lines. If you have to, best to run it perpendicular rather than parallel, but of course your contact might have been in the same direction, so making it less than ideal. Thanks for the video. Definitely some nice things to consider. Cheers.

The contact card is a great idea. You are miles ahead of me when it comes to having a communication plan. I know who among my non ham contacts I want to be able to get messages to, but I haven't figured out exactly who in my ham circle I can use to relay the messages. I have a few ideas on who I could possibly use in my local area. I don't have any out of state ham contacts I could use though.

Another thought provoking video! Bravo! I was particularly interested in your "contact" card where you had designated contacts using a two digit designation (I2, O3, etc) for specific persons to retain operational security. Although I realize that this is WAY OFF TOPIC, it dovetails into something I was contemplating last week and that was how to compress a message into a short "code". Of course, it would require a codebook to be maintained within the group. My first thought was a 3 digit number corresponding to some longer code designation. But then I remembered, after watching the video, how much I hate simple numbers to refer to a specific code. Many medical software databases use numbers to match up with treatment codes. But they are horrible to remember! What I did when writing my own medical software package was to use 2 letter groups, up to 5 layers deep, to designate a treatment. For example, a tetanus shot was IJVATT (IJ-injection, VA-vaccine, TT-tetanus toxoid). Or a DPAIBUTA10 (DP-dispense, AI-anti-inflammatory, BU-phenylbutazone, TA-tablets, 10-100mg). Basically, what I'm throwing out for discussion is an "easy to remember" coding system for abbreviated messaging that could fit into a small payload. Of course, like your position, certain details can be appended for clarity. The main point is: 1) I'm always pushed to think after watching a video, and 2) Sometimes concepts can emerge from other fields of endeavour that might not normally be considered.

my best advice is to clip a wire onto the vertical and instantly convert your vertical into an inverted-L for excellent NVIS (tuner required, but you already deployed that anyway)

Great video. I was working HF CW the other day and my wife asked why I wasn't filming it. Grrr. Thanks for the excellent production and keep it up.

Failures are always a possible outcome, success not. But don't forget that it's still an outcome one can learn from and reflect of. Or failure is not per definition negative (as long as you learn from it and of that I'm convinced you're covering that👍). 73

Failures happen more than successes, which is why I laugh at all of the keyboard commandos that say they don't need a license to operate radios and they'll be fine when SHTF.

That was a great one dude! Thanks.👍👍

Liked the code for the contact' details, very clever. 73 and thanks for posting.

Excellent video Gaston.

You do really good videos on radios. I am new technician, So I am like a baby, Learning everything I see , hear & read. - KE2AUM 📡-73

Great vid, as always. I'm still working to catch up on the fundamentals, so your vids like this are many months of skillset and equipment procurement/development beyond my current situation. But while application isn't going to happen for quite a while on my end, I learn with each of your vids and I enjoy and appreciate them. Thanks, Gaston.

Keep up the good work, Gaston! Great exercise! Great debrief! My tactical call is "Chicken Dinner." When a youngster the local VFD was by the largest baptist church in the area on one of the busiest highways in the state. One Sunday a month they would have a chicken fry fundraiser. Baptist and fried chicken on a Sunday after meeting was a marriage made in heaven. The VFD had a large PA you could easily hear a 1/4 mile, "Chicken dinner, chicken dinner, come and get your chicken dinner!" What could be better than fresh hot 1/4 of fried chicken, coleslaw, baked beans, a roll, or white bread with sweet tea or sugary sweet Kool Aid. After lunch we ran, played tag, and fed the Koi fish white bread. GOOD TIMES! GREAT MEMORIES! Sometimes I check the local repeater for traffic calling, "Chicken dinner, chicken dinner. Are that any chickens looking for a chicken dinner. N4VEP." For JS8Call, I guess I could settle for "CD." Just for the record, my family wasn't baptist, but some other Jesus people. Keep track of your NVIS the next few years. In 4-5yrs you may have to change band and time as we move towards solar minimum. 80m may become your goto. 73, N4VEP

Excellent lessons. Thanks

Thank you for sharing your experience with us. Practice^3 Cant emphasize that enough! I'm a relatively new Ham & every time I switch on a radio, even a Baofeng, I learn something new. 73s

GMan FB exercise! Setting up by the power lines demonstrated that you can succeed in a compromised location. Keep up the good work! 👍

For being limited on time this sure had a lot of great information. Thank you. I look forward to communicating with the folks on Buy Me A Coffee to learn more about communication possibilities with family about 800 miles away.

Great video, thanks

Excellent video. Great demonstration that you do not need to use systems that require that you to submit to their rules where your identity and messages can be scrutinized.

Loved your video and learnings. I heard you over the Intertie that day, and I was tempted to say hello to let you know how much I enjoy your videos. However, I didn’t want to interrupt your filming. Keep it up and 73. W1UTE

Great exercise

Awesome video as always bud. I got a Yaesu VX6R. Very good little radio! Thanks for reccomending it.

Ah... the infamous "Box Canyon".... those situations never end well. As long as you survive, everyday is a learning experience as long as you're open to it. Thanks for another great video pushing us all to think out of the box canyon...haha

That Cha Hybrid Micro is great. I added the Delta loop kit to mine. . . haven't tried it yet, but looking forward to it. It's supposed to be resonant across all the HF bands. Essentially its just 2 whips at a 45 degree angle connected at the top.

Thanks for this video i just ordered my first gmrs radio and applied for my license this week. Been looking for years on what to do for shtf scenarios. After watching 1000s of videos on hams, and seeing all the negative people using them, aka sad hams. Pushed me away very abruptly. Gsmr is now the ones i will go with.

I got my technician, studying for the general, and I'm getting my family to get thier license so I can contact them since few of them are in California, Nevada, Arizona, Mexico, Utah, Florida, north Dakota and my state of Alabama. I dont understand winlink and js8 stuff, but digital stuff is cool but not for me. I like phone bands and cw, I still have lots to learn still. My main focus with the hobby will be pota/sota, phone bands on vhf/uhf and hf, fox hunting and cw. 73, kq4hcu

Gotta have a small mallet to drive that Chameleon antenna ground stake into the ground.

Good action report. Shows how important flexibility, community, capability and coordination are critical for communication. A good add for op security is AIS comms and using messaging obscurity. Relaying a message to any contact to relay a message to AIS or another means and using your code words can work. The key thing to add is a means to incorporate a note in a message that can validate your identity to your known contact via an unknown contact. Something like some math using today’s date and your birthday, etc. I think this would technically be illegal encryption, but within acceptability of the community via obscurity.

Was making regular contacrs with Mike but i went home up north for a week where i have to get into Eldon for Intertie.

Great video as always Gaston! The contact cards gives more ideas to think about. Just a thought as another contingency plan on this: could you have used the JS8call command to see if any other stations are hearing Mike, then use that station to relay your message to Mike?

Failure is not an option... it's a requirement. We need to be prepared for everything to fail even if it's just knowing when to give up.

'Real world' is a very divisive term as any scenario must stand up to analysis and at least a desktop exercise covering pre-event, event, and response & recovery on immediate area, local, and wide area stages. However, at least The presenter is actually actively testing the plan and adapting when it doesn't work.. unlike the majority of people who sell the idea of a post-apocalyptic survivalist scenario requiring the overpriced junk they are peddling.

If you run the vertical off of your trailer hitch (with appropriate mount), you don't need radials, the vehicle makes a very efficient ground plane and far less setup time. I do that quite often when I don't have a big enough footprint to set up a larger antenna like an EFHW. Using 50' of coax also helps as a balance to the antenna, and it doesn't need to be stretched out, coiled up works just as well. At the distance you were attempting, I've used 40m at all times of the day with this setup.

I'm a beginner in amateur radio I really like this concept though I was thinking about doing a radio in the car and I saw your other video. I guess I don't know enough and my question would be what do I need as a prepper/preparer? I typically prefer to have more than less so more power more range more ammo that kind of stuff more skills than I need if and when I have to use them...

HF tools is great for ham support stuff.

Not easy is it? This video gets us ready to try alternatives. Hopeful until we succeed. Thanks.

You probably already know this, but NVIS is a type of propagation, not an antenna configuration. 40M in particular is only NVIS-capable at the right times of day and during the right atmospheric condx. 80M would have been more reliable, had your location not been next to those high lines. Probably info you already knew but for the new or soon to be radio operators it is good to point out. Maybe consider a future video on the selection of bands for regional comms, including time of day and atmospheric condx?

Been thinking of buying an Icom 705 due to it's built in sound card for use with js8call on foot.

Once possible improvement if you brought the legs slightly closer together you could focus the signal in the direction of the station you want to contact, this would improve your signal performance in a high QRM enviroment, however you may loose contact with your other stations as you are no longer NVIS. God bless.

With every limited funds I purchased a 897d with a great deal of other items. Could you recommend an antenna?

I want to build a rig like this, but with a Xiegu G90 which has a built-in antenna tuner, is current production and more affordable. I look forward to the possible future release of your EmComm tools app. ;)

Whats the best way to get rid of glare on a tablet screen? Mine is almost unreadable in bright light.

Do you have any experience or comments for using Meshtastic and 915MHz? It seems like another nice deployment and even offers high encryption. Just wanted your thoughts.

I am trying to come up with a similar comms solution here in Hawaii as in an emergency, our comms situation here would be easily knocked out and unreliable. Being stuck 2,000 miles out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean doesn't make having reliable effective comms easy.

What receiver hitch mast adapter are you using?

I have been working on js8 call. Just in the shack, not the field as of yet

The CHA TDL has some NVIS capability and in my case needs almost no tuning 40-6. If you're already carrying the CHA Hybrid and don't have a TDL hub kit, I'd STRONGLY recommend grabbing one!

Location, consider an area map with a custom grid so only your map and one you give to some one have the same grid. this allows you to tell someone where you are roughly.

Hello. Which is the best DMR handheld radio?

I Need to get JS8 working for our "listening posts" who only use SDR. I have Radio to Radio Relay teams, but even many of those do not have HF radio setup for digital. Do you dedicate a single FT-891 to digital, or change setting back and fourth?

So, I live next to a 39kW transmission line. I have had moderate success reaching out,but not what I’d like. I’m primarily using a Packtenna EFHW. Have any suggestions on gear or technique to mitigate the influence of those lines?

You comments on Meshtastic, would be greatly appreciated

Curious of your thoughts on Vara HF Have you tried it? I run an 857D portable and have my Laptop and radio configured for Vara HF / FM using a Digirig. I haven’t yet given JS8Call a try yet. Howdy from N7ORG

Wondering if you can comment about importance of cobbling together a network of known friends with some kind of security verification system so when SHTF you can trust who you’re reaching out to. Meaning, copycat deception may come into play. How far should the network go? At least 500 mile radius so you can get a bit of early warning, and gain other areas situational awareness.

Network? Like over APRS? What's your current APRS digipeater setup? Is it 50w?

Were you using 40m with the vertical? I have a chatdl and tried 40m but very lossy.

Hey brother, I saw a medical book in one video that I meant to check out but scrolling back though the library, I don’t see it. Might you have a link to check it?

The intertie system? The one that runs from Montana through Idaho down to Parump Nv? I can hit that from my area. 73.

for a portable operation, would a EFHW (set up as a sloper) with a 49:1 balun be a good choice?

Have you tired Vara HF Peer-to-Peer? I find it robust. You can have a set channel with all the stations on one frequency. All you have to do is just type in the callsign in the P2P and have your email set for P2P.

Any chance you’d be willing to give some guidance to a newb, trying to figure out a setup for home to be able to reach my daughter in college about 90 miles away? Thanks

Do you have a mounted antenna on the jeep?

Hey, is there any chance you could cover LoRa and Meshtastic? Your perspective would be an interesting take on the whole thing.

What toughbook is that?

I wonder if 10m would’ve worked better given the time of day and the distances you’re trying to make?

Can you show how your wife received the message? What tools did she use?

Sacrifice for the algorithm

Good day Mr. Tech, are you interested coining a new word?

I'm a bit confused about why you don't want to use your name, but then use your call sign. No security gained. Then you give the most important info to keep secure, your location. If giving these things there is nothing "secure-ish."

Failed successfully!

Is it naive to think i can have a comms plan for this purpose that doesn't use digital, ie js8?

Can you use that software without a call sign? I guess you could just lie . Ham really isn’t what you want for real world secure comms

shoulda used the Chameleon LEFS... it wouldn't have let you down.

Can Mike get your wife on voice simplex or is he too far?

Great video. Started my path and have been getting training from @RadioMadeEasy