If you spend any time around prepper or amateur-radio communities, you will quickly hear the phrase “cheap Chinese radios” or “CCRs.” Most of the time, people are talking about Baofeng-style handhelds: compact, dual-band, programmable transceivers that can cost less than…

Long before podcasts and streaming, people were already tuning into some of the strangest content imaginable: anonymous voices reading strings of numbers over shortwave radio. These so-called “numbers stations” have gone from obscure intelligence tools to recurring characters in music,…

Many new preppers focus on collecting radios, power banks and antennas, but neglect the human side of communication: plans, habits and message discipline. Major emergency-management bodies repeatedly stress that failures in planning and behaviour are more dangerous than gaps in…