I am a ham radio operator and can assure anyone that wants to get a license, that it is not that hard.
However, my experience is very limited concerning chaos scenarios. Ham radio does provide training for emergency operations, but the emergency communications are coordinated through local authorites, etc. They are not geared for personal survival when there is no government. At least to my knowledge.
I would think that like everything else, you have to ask yourself what is the function you expect to gain from radio communications?
- just for the family only
- just for members of a camp or whatever
- just for listening purposes to see what may be going on in the rest of the world
- just for communcating with other like minded survivors, far away, or maybe not so far away
- just for listening for an enemy close by, or not so close by
Each one of these functions would have different solutions.
You guys are on the right track however. Ham radio has continuosly proven to be the most reliable source of radio communications ever. Even cell phones can't compete. Especially when the cell towers go off-line.
I wish I could be of better help, but i've just not been keeping up with the survivoralist thinking/planning.
One of my clients however is, and he built a house big enuff for all of his immediate family, children, grand children and so forth. Electrical generators running on natural gas, water wells, guns, ammuntions, special food supplies....But as far as I can remember, he never mentioned anything about radio communications to complete his setup.
