Ham Radio Isn’t Magic: Preppers, Sad Hams, and Practical Off-Grid Communications
Every hacker has seen the post: someone asks what radio will let them “reliably talk 500 miles to family when the cell network goes down.” The replies quickly devolve into bad advice, magical thinking, and dismissive gatekeeping. The result is confusion, wasted money, and false confidence about off-grid communications. This talk is the antidote. It will cut through the mythology and explain what amateur radio can actually do for personal and family communication during major disruptions – and what it cannot. Starting at a 101 level, it will cover realistic ranges, basic propagation, equipment tradeoffs, digital modes, licensing myths, and why distance is usually the wrong requirement. Rather than dunking on preppers or policing fun like a sad ham, this talk reframes the problem the way hackers do: understanding constraints, failure modes, and human factors. It will focus on practical off-grid communication strategies that work in the real world – coordination, redundancy, and low-bandwidth messaging – not fantasy continent-spanning voice links.
Saturday 1700 Crystal Ballroom
