2. Get yourself a scanner (800 MHZ Trunked)that has both AM aircraft and Military Aircraft. Base receivers are easier to be had, but the Radio shack Pro 97 handheld has 225-400 MHZ frequencies in them. You can pick up most government frequencies on these radios, an outside antenna on your house will get you much greater reception. You can pick up FBI, local police/fire/ambulance/metro bus lines----I've heard interesting shit there indeed. Secret Service they run digital frequencies, so forget about picking them up.
Although if the president is in the area, police/sheriff/state patrol use local frequencies that USSS has access to that they use in "rolling roadblocks"LAPD runs 470-500 MHZ some trunked, unless they changed.Air Force One is 408.750 MHZ and 415.700 MHZ uplink/and downlink "Crown"---the White House is the frequencies White House aides use> You can pick these up if Air force One is in your area. I picked up Clinton's White House AIDES using these.They are PUBLIC FREQUENCIES. But these are necessary to have to know what the hell is going on, at least some idea.
3. Acquire a Shortwave Radio Receiver (I have 3 of them, one is almost to crap, but I can still get reception with batteries on it.) This shortwave receiver MUST have separate USB (Upper Side Band) and LSB (Lower Side Band) Most government communications, especially military run in USB. So does the Space Shuttle. I picked them up on VHF Ham Radio (on my scanner one time when they came over head in 1983).I still got the frequencies they used. Astronaut Owen Garriott made the first Amateur Radio transmission from space and I picked them up in Rock Springs, Wyoming. Remember when Rush Limbaugh used to be on WRNO New Orleans on shortwave radio when he started? 154295 KHZ . So get yourself a shortwave radio with separate USB LSB Single Sideband (SSB) frequencies.
4. Last but not least, Obtain a SSB CB Radio (Yea we call them children's radio) but Truckers still use them, and we'll need em. SSB will talk 12 miles barefoot hundreds or even thousands of miles with a linear depending on wattage, we just gotta find em, as they are illegal over 150 watts.Flying J Truckstop has CB's with SSB's. For about $150 dollars and they are damn good radios. Do not buy Realistic CB radios (Radio shack), as they are junk. Don't buy the antennas at Flying J Truckers antennas etc, cause you have to know exactly how to set the SWRS. How much coax you gotta cut. etc. Anything over 2.0 will blow the finals out of your radio.
Go to radio shack and buy a 102" steel whip with the hardware and coax, Remember like the old California Highway Patrol cars had, and Sheriff Taylor in Mayberry.I've never been able to set a SWR antenna ratio to 1.1.5 except for the 102 inch steel whip. They are the best. If you get just one for your truck, install it on the right rear of the truck (you need to drill a 1 inch hole to put the mount in) as the transmission will go towards your forward part of the drivers side of your door, which is what you want. Duals will go both ways.
102 inch whips are the best mobile antennas I ever seen. You don't have to cut the coax, long as it's 18 foot (might be 6 foot tho.) 1.1..5 is the best SWR ratio you can have. Shit on good day you can talk 10-15 miles, and with skip, hundreds of miles. But you do this, you got a long way to know what the hell is happening.We will need the CB's when cell phones get jammed. CB's go line of site and not thru satellite, so comms are always possible.If you can get a ham radio do so. However, we need to do that legal, and we just have to study the book (Radio Shack has it) and contact a VEC (volunteer examiner\coordinator) which one can find thru http://www.arrl.org. or Amature Radio Supply. License lasts for 10 years. We could use Ham for our purposes, as long as it's not a business. But we'd have to be careful what we say, no codes allowed etc.
Do not get on any other frequencies such as outside CB Channels (illegal channels outside of legal CB bands---I know of folks who run them which is a no-no, One guy told me he built a radio with 900 channels. My bro in law who was a trucker had one and talked on them. He got a response, from USCG saying get off the channel. USCG identified themselves. Bro in law ignored it, and they come back on again, saying get off the channel now, it's unauthorized, or else. He got off quickly. This was in 1990's going thru Oklahoma CB is HF (high frequencies) and if you got a linear, you can talk 100's of miles or even across the world. Linears are illegal according to FCC rules.Thing is, don't talk on channels you ain't legal, and everybody is OK. People say f**k on the radio, and FCC don't even care, cause it's unregulated on CB Radios But since it's dying out amongst most folks, we can make it come back, as we won't have much the garbage on there. 40 channels plus SSB uppers and lowers are enough for what we need. So CB's would be a great asset to the movement in the long run.
Trunked Frequencies has 3 modes I know of Motorola 2 I can much help you out. Ericsson and Motorola 1 is a bitch to figure out. Changes I have no Idea, been a long time since I done it. We run straight VHF frequencies here, which is easy to program. Seattle runs Trunked, so takes a bit of time to set it up, frequencies, and talk groups. See in Trunked frequencies, everybody in one city shares the same frequencies, but they have different talk groups which is most important to set. Water, Ambulance, Public utilities, Police, Fire. So you can set police from sheriff from fire (use 2-3 banks here.). Water and public works, forget them... Cap