Tue 12 Feb 2008
AskMe Chatfilter rescue mission:
In case of nuclear holocaust, alien attack, meteor strike, superflu pandemic or other world-wide catastrophe, how might survivors (in a very specific set of circumstances, discussed after the jump) communicate?
Hat tip to kbanas; more preamble/detail in his deleted question if you’re hungry.
Posted by Josh Millard5 answers so far!
A-Team contract cancelled! Deleted question rewritten and resurrected! I believe this is our first BBQ Lazarus Schism, which I’m celebrating by making up the phrase “Lazarus Schism”.
I still like the original question, though; it followed me home, and I want to keep it. So have at!
Ham radio. Yes, that’s right. Your eccentric uncle Bert is going to be a saviour of humanity and play an integral role in establishing post-eschaton communications.
Oh yeah, HAMs are eccentric all right. I used to be one before I let my license expire (Technician Class, but they’ve changed the rules since then). I think everyone should at least know SOS in Morse Code.
I say that now but all I can remember is dit, dit-dah, dah…dah-dah, dit. Throwback from Johnny B days (radio disc jockey).
When you get your license they give you instructions on what to do in case of emergency, as one of the answers said.
Pretending this emergency has already happened, this is what I remember, without looking anything up on the ‘net, so it could be partially wrong:
Regarding CB, that is simplex, i.e., radio to radio, and depends on how much power you have; so if you’re say, 50 miles from anywhere and the nearest person with a CB radio is 100 miles, I don’t think they will pick up your signal. HAM radios use repeaters, antennas on top of tall buildings, to carry their signal further. Which is why I could sit in my car in Chicagoland traffic and bitch to someone downtown about how bad the traffic was, whereas, out in the sticks, I was pretty limited unless I had a superior base station with lots of power. I don’t know if a repeater will work without power.
For listening to emergency broadcasts, I’d get a radio powered by a hand crank. For communicating, I’d go to a local school because I think that’s a likely gathering place due to the gyms and auditoriums. Communication via radio would be limited to those with generators, solar power, etc. Since most gas pumps don’t work without electricity, it would have to be conserved. Which leaves us with the Pony Express or bicycle messenger service.
Dear me, I’ll take smoke signals or semaphore or anything so long as it’s not Kevin Costner as the Postman.
I think it depends on how broken and stratified civilization has become.
Initially, communication could be done with a loud-speaker, to round up survivors, next you could switch to ham and CB radios to talk to people in your city and surrounding areas, after that, you might be able to re-purpose some power lines for telegraph or other wired communications; this could provide you with inter-city abilities.
Of course, if it’s something that wipes out our capacity for using electrical power easily, we could always fall back to smoke signals and reflected light, but I suspect that semaphore (set up in line-of-sight stations) would provide the best chances for long distance communications.