This week: How to build a household communications plan in 10 minutes.
There is a version of emergency preparedness that appears to be a weekend project: binders, laminated cards, color-coded folders, and a dedicated shelf in the garage. We have seen it. It is thorough, it is robust, and it is also why most families never start. The bar feels too high before you have even picked up a pen.
The household communications plan we are going to walk through today takes about 10 minutes. It does not require a binder. It does not require a printer. It requires a piece of paper, something to write with, and the people in your household sitting in the same room for a few minutes.
That is it. Ten minutes. Here is what goes into it.
The Four Things Every Plan Needs
A household communications plan has four components. Everything else is a bonus.
Channels. Which radio channel does your household use first? Which one do you switch to if the first is busy or unavailable? Write down two channel numbers. Primary and backup. That is your channel plan.
Call signs. A call sign is just a short name you use on the radio so everyone knows who is speaking. It does not need to be creative. It just needs to be one word and easy to understand through radio static. Most households use first names. Some use simple handles. Write one down for each person in your household.
Check-in times. If something goes wrong and you are separated, when do you attempt radio contact? Pick two or three fixed times per day. Morning, midday, and evening work for most households. Write them down. If you cannot reach someone at a scheduled check-in time, you know to keep trying at the next one.
Meeting points. If radio contact fails entirely, where do you go? Every household needs two physical locations agreed on in advance. A primary meeting point nearby, somewhere easy for everyone to reach. A secondary meeting point farther away, somewhere you would go if the primary location was unsafe or inaccessible. Write both down.
That is your plan. Four things. One piece of paper.
The Message Format That Actually Works
Once you have your plan, you need one more thing: a shared understanding of how to communicate over the radio when something is actually happening.
We use a four-part message format here at SignalGuides. Every transmission follows the same structure, in the same order, every time.
Who. State your call sign and who you are calling. Alpha to Base. Bravo to Alpha.
Where. State your location. At school. Corner of Oak and Fifth. In the car near downtown.
Status. State your condition in one word. Safe. Injured. Unsure.
Need. State what you are doing next or what you need. Returning home. Need pickup. Staying put until next check-in.
A complete message sounds like this: Alpha to Base. At the library on Main Street. Safe. Returning home now.
That message takes about seven seconds to transmit. Anyone in your household who has practiced it once can deliver it clearly under pressure. That is the goal.
Practice It Once Before You Need It
A plan that has never been tested is just a piece of paper. We recommend one low-stakes practice run within a week of writing your plan down.
It does not need to be dramatic. Turn the radios on when everyone is home. Have one person go to another room or step outside. Run through a check-in. Transmit a message using the four-part format. Confirm the other person received it and can repeat it back.
Five minutes. That one practice session is the difference between a plan that works and a plan that falls apart the first time someone is stressed and trying to remember what comes after their call sign.
Your Quick Start Card
If you downloaded the SignalGuides Family Emergency Comms Quick Start Card when you subscribed, this is the week to fill it out. It walks through all four components of your household plan with brief instructions alongside each field.
Print it out, sit down with your household, and fill it in together. It takes about the same ten minutes we described above. Once it is filled out, put it somewhere everyone can find it. On the refrigerator. Inside a kitchen cabinet. In the glovebox of your car.
If you have not downloaded it yet, you can get it at signalguides.com.
This Week's Gear Spotlight
Once you have a written plan, you need somewhere reliable to keep it. Notes on your phone are fine until your phone is dead. A piece of regular paper is fine until it gets wet.
The Rite in the Rain 3x5 All-Weather Notebook runs about $8 and is worth keeping in your emergency kit. The paper is designed to be written on in rain, in humidity, and in conditions that would destroy a standard notebook. Write your channel plan, call signs, check-in times, and meeting points in it in permanent marker. Keep it with your radios.
It is a small thing. It is also the kind of small thing that matters when conditions are not ideal, and you need to find information quickly.
The One Thing
This week: Fill out your household communications plan today. Four components. One piece of paper. If you have the Quick Start Card, use it. If you do not, grab any piece of paper and write down your primary channel, backup channel, call signs, check-in times, and two meeting points. Do it before the next issue arrives. |
Next Issue
Most people think of emergency communications as a single radio on a single channel. The communicators who stay connected when things go wrong think in layers. Next week, we introduce the five-layer framework that underpins everything we cover in this newsletter.
Stay connected,
Editor, SignalGuides
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