dead of night wrote:
Hi. I'm reading Daphne Du Maurier's short story "The Birds" right now.
In this story, a family is inside their boarded up house, attacked by
thousands of birds. They tune to their radio and learn that farther
away,in the cities, the population is under attack by hordes of large
birds. These attacks seem to be organized, military, and reasoning.
I'm interested in the radio as a tool of survival in an emergency:
weather, terror, war, epidemic, or alien. What would be some of the
best radios to own as a source of news information and survival in a
time of severe crisis and emergency?

It depends on what you want to find out and what kinds of radio you're
comfortable working with.

It pains me to admit this, but Shortwave radio isn't terribly useful
during a disaster. Even a MW AM radio can hear radio stations from
hundreds of miles away on any given night. On most nights I can hear
stations in Montreal from my home about 30 miles west of Baltimore.
Such a radio doesn't need to be expensive. I'm thinking GE SuperRadio
here...

In general, the utility of a Shortwave radio is less because fewer and
fewer stations broadcast to North America on any regular basis. Instead
of a Shortwave radio, I'd get an XM or Sirus satellite radio.

A VHF and UHF scanner of good quality (one capable of APCO-25 digital
reception) would be a solid investment --assuming you know how to set it
up to receive your local police and fire companies. It could give you a
real heads up in the event they're involved in something truly ugly.

The bottom line, however, is that you need to listen to them to get
news. Most people don't want that "noise" in the background.

Me? I live across the street from a fire station. My wife actually
pushed me to get a scanner and set it up so that she could find out what
was going on out there. Some day, we'll get a decent APCO-25 capable
scanner to find out the whole story. And I still wake up to my Grundig
YB-400 every morning.

Yes, I have other radios. All of them are better than the stuff I use
next to my bedside. But size and battery power mean a lot. Some day, I
plan to put solar film arrays on my barn roof. It will mostly be for
backfeeding my electrical meter a bit, though I still think it would be
nice to have for emergencies. I'm no survivalist, but I do think it's
worth while being prepared. You never know when Mother Nature will
throw a curve ball at you.

Jake Brodsky
Amateur Radio Station AB3A