Communications FAQ PT1

Survival Communications FAQ Version 1.2

DISCLAIMER: The authors and editors of this FAQ panel assume no legal responsibility for any errors in or misuse of this information, and are not to be held legally liable or responsible for any death, injury, loss of property, or other negative consequences resulting from use, misuse, or abuse of this information.

This document was based upon an earlier FAQ written by another m.s lurker, and has received many contributions from m.s members who wished not to be named here.

Any comments should be sent to me at mailto:medintz@idir.net, and will be acted on or forwarded to the other authors as appropriate.

Archiving or re-distribution is permitted only according to the terms of the document In general, redistribution, use, or storage is approved, but there are certain stipulations and exceptions in that document that must be obeyed.

This document is a work in progress. Suggestions, comments, and recommendations are always welcomed, and will be acted on or forwarded as appropriate.

Further information on radio may be gathered from ‘The ARRL Handbook’ and the ‘ARRL Operating Manual’, published by the American Radio Relay League ( http://www.arrl.org )

A topic as broad as communications can never been completely covered, especially in what should be a terse and matter-of-fact FAQ. We’ll start out with the most general description we can provide, and get more specific deeper in the document.

WHAT IS COMMUNICATION?

The first step in understanding communications in the context of survival is understanding of the fundamentals of communication itself. Communication is a very complex topic, as difficult to completely define as truth, beauty, or time; however, in an attempt to cut to the chase and make our life simple, we’ll start with two definitions:

· COMMUNICATION is the successful transfer of information from one person to another person or entity.

· COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS are comprised of equipment, methods and techniques of supporting information transfer, enabling communication to take place between two people. (Please note that these definitions are cheap outs, since we haven’t defined what we mean by information, but you get it, right? Note that we’re also limiting things by requiring at least one person in
the loop, to reduce the scope of this document.)

What Happens When We Communicate?

In order for any communication to take place, there are three major requirements that must be satisfied.

• REQUIREMENT ONE: There must be a sender and a receiver. For most survival purposes, this means a person trying to send a message and a person looking for a message sent to them.
• REQUIREMENT TWO: The sender and receiver must understand how the message is to be conveyed, and must understand the message itself.

In the survival context, this means that both people trying to communicate understand how their communication system works (how to operate the communications equipment, that one or two lamps have different meanings, how to look up a word in a dictionary) and that they understand the message (the message in clear and in a common language, that one lamp means that the British are coming by land and two lamps means by sea.)

• REQUIREMENT THREE: the communication system must be capable of delivering the message. (There’s not so much fog the lamps can’t be seen, or that the radios are within range and working properly.

THE ONE RULE OF COMMUNICATIONS: To communicate, the sender creates a message that both he and the receiver should understand. Then, using a common system that is capable of delivering the message, the sender transmits the message to the receiver, who understands the message sent.

SURVIVAL IMPLICATIONS

Failure to communicate is always the result of a failure to meet the requirements. A few specific examples:

The first requirement being that there is someone trying to send a message and someone expecting to receive it may at first seem obvious, however in practice it is probably the most violated requirement of communications in a survival context, providing the violator with a false sense of security until they need to communicate. For some reason, somebody buys a CB and thinks they can be in the middle of nowhere, call for help on channel 9, and Air Rescue magically appears to come in and save them. Yup, it’s a long day in hell when this happens.

It’s not just CB owners, either: this requirement gets violated by amateur radio operators (I’ll just call for help on the repeater except they left the directory home and their rig doesn’t provide the right sub-audible tones, or the guy that just answered your CQ or SOS on 40 meters thinks you’re a crank) and Cell Phone users (whadda ya mean they don’t have service in the middle of a wilderness area or during a massive power outage?).

Nor is this limited to radio: flare guns (It’s 2AM, a bear just ate your camp partner, and you’re fifty miles from civilization in a valley. Shoot a flare off, and you’ve made your camp brighter for a few seconds and pissed off the bear. Feel better?) Air horns (same scenario, maybe the bear leaves if it’s loud enough.)

Resolving problems surrounding the first requirement simply means making sure there is a person listening. Perhaps someone you know, perhaps not. The 911 system, for example, consists of people continually monitoring a phone for incoming messages from senders. World-wide, satellites and many pilots listen to 121.5 Mhz on their radios, looking for distress signals. If a CB operator knew someone in the area who agreed to listen on channel 9 for 15 minutes at 6PM everyday, his chances of being heard then are vastly improved. The ham, who had punched in the frequency to his club’s repeater, which has a long-tone-zero (LTZ) emergency alert system that gets friends from the club on would be in better shape too; and if the ham’s friend was listening at 6PM everyday on 40 meters, it’s doubtful his friend would think he was nuts if he said he needed help urgently. Having a friend look for a flare on a ridge line a hour before sunrise-and climbing to the ridge line to fire the flare–would work wonders, too.

Note that in each of these cases, not only was someone listening, but there was coordination, also, in that the recipient of the messages knew when and where to look or listen.

What have we learned?

1. Someone has to Send and someone needs to Listen.
2. Both have to use the same system. Both need to understand the message.
3. Coordination between the sender and listener vastly increases the likelihood of successful communications.