A handheld radio promises 35 miles and gives you two in a neighborhood
Plus why the first furnace run of the month starts cold season inside your walls.
Issue #051 Wednesday, October 7, 2026 Emergency Skills
The package says 35 miles. Put houses, trees, and a hill between two handhelds and you get about two, which changes every plan built on those radios.
Today’s Skill
Lock the channel, set the hour
Pick one channel and one backup. Write both on tape inside each radio’s battery door. Agree on listening windows: top of every hour, listen five minutes, then off to save battery. Test it from the far corner of your block with the doors shut, not from the driveway. Put the out-of-state contact number on that same tape. Keep fresh batteries in a bag rubber-banded to each unit.
On The Radar
Closed windows, shared air
The heat comes on this month and the windows stay shut. Dry, recycled air moves respiratory bugs through a house fast. Run a humidifier or a pot of water on the stove at night. Stock fever reducers for adults and for kids, plus electrolyte mix and tissues. Check the dates on what you already own. Call refills in with a week of pills left, because cold season thins the shelves first.
The Drill
Walk the radio to the dead spot
Tonight, hand one radio to someone in the kitchen. Take the other and walk away, calling in every thirty seconds. Go to the back bedroom with the door shut. Then the basement. Then the end of the street, then two streets over. Mark the exact spot where their voice breaks up. Write those dead spots on an index card and tape it near the radios.
Ready beats lucky.
- Survival Rise
P.S. Tomorrow: the one tool in your kit that fails quietly and takes the whole kit with it.