radio
Radio is the other half of resilience. The arsenal keeps your systems standing when they are attacked; radio keeps you able to communicate when the networks everyone else leans on are simply gone. This is a growing field guide to amateur (ham) radio with one eye always on resilience: what actually works when the grid is down, how to get licensed and on the air, antennas you can build yourself, and the operating skills that turn a radio into a lifeline. Everything here assumes licensed, lawful operation, and it is shared freely for other operators and for anyone who wants to be ready.
01Resilience you can hold in your hand
Every other section of WarFi assumes the network is up. Radio is what is left when it is not. A storm takes out the cell towers, a cut cable isolates an island, the power is gone for a week: a licensed operator with a handheld, a wire in a tree, and a battery can still pass word that someone is safe, coordinate relief, or simply stay informed. Amateur radio is not nostalgia, it is infrastructure that keeps working when the fragile parts fail, and in a place like Palawan, strung across islands and weather, that matters.
» No subscription, no provider, no single point of failure; the operator and the ionosphere are the network.
» Ranges from across the room to across the planet, depending on band, antenna, and conditions.
» A recognised emergency service: during disasters, amateur operators routinely carry traffic when nothing else can.
» A deep, lifelong craft: electronics, propagation, antennas, and operating skill all reward the curious.
02Get licensed first
You may listen to the amateur bands freely, and doing so is a great way to learn. Transmitting is different: in the Philippines you must hold an amateur licence from the NTC and use your assigned callsign. This is not red tape for its own sake. The licence proves you know the rules and the safety, and it keeps the bands usable for everyone, including the emergency nets that depend on them. Transmitting without a licence, or outside your privileges, is an offence and it is also simply bad form.
The licensing section below walks through the NTC classes and how to prepare. Until you are licensed, listen, study, and build antennas: all legal, all useful. When you are ready to key up, do it under your own callsign and within your class privileges.
03Respect RF, voltage, and the sky
Radio is safe when you respect three things. RF energy: do not transmit into an antenna anyone is touching or standing beside, especially at higher power. Voltage: rigs, amplifiers, and power supplies hold dangerous charge; treat them with care. And the weather: a mast or a long wire is a lightning target, which in coastal Palawan is a real and frequent risk.
» Ground your station properly and fit lightning arrestors on your feedlines.
» Disconnect antennas from the rig when a storm is near or the station is unattended.
» Keep antennas and masts well clear of power lines, with margin for them to fall.
» No transmitting while anyone is working on or near the antenna.
04Pick the right band for the job
The single most useful idea in radio is that different bands do different jobs. VHF and UHF (2 metres and 70 centimetres) are mostly line-of-sight: excellent for local, reliable, handheld comms around a town or between nearby islands. HF (the shortwave bands, 80 through 10 metres) bounces off the ionosphere and reaches far, from regional to worldwide, but needs more antenna and more skill. Matching the band to the distance you need is half of getting a message through.
» 2m / 70cm (VHF/UHF): local, line-of-sight, handhelds and repeaters; your everyday and neighbourhood band.
» 40m / 80m (HF): regional coverage, including close-in 'cloud warmer' NVIS for a whole province; the backbone of disaster nets.
» 20m (HF): the daytime long-distance workhorse for reaching other regions and countries.
» 10m / 15m (HF): long distance when the sun is active; quiet when it is not.
05Local comms: simplex and repeaters
For talking around your area, a 2 metre handheld is the place to start. Two radios talking directly to each other is 'simplex'. A repeater is a station on a hill or tower that listens on one frequency and retransmits on another, extending a handheld's few kilometres to cover a whole region. Repeaters are wonderful until the power or the site fails, so every operator should also know their local simplex calling frequency and be ready to drop to it.
» Learn your local repeater outputs and their tone (CTCSS) requirements, and keep them written down, not just in the radio.
» Know the national 2m FM simplex calling frequency so you can meet other operators without infrastructure.
» When a repeater goes down in an emergency, simplex and a better antenna are your fallback.
» A modest gain antenna up high beats more power almost every time on VHF.
06Digital modes that get through
When voice is too weak or you need to pass exact text, digital modes shine. FT8 can complete a contact when a signal is far below what the ear can hear, which makes it superb for knowing a band is open and for minimal-power work. JS8Call borrows that weak-signal engine for keyboard-to-keyboard messaging. And Winlink carries full email, including to the regular internet via gateway stations, entirely over radio, which is why it is a pillar of emergency communication.
» FT8: tiny, structured contacts that work at signal levels voice never could; great for checking propagation.
» JS8Call: the same weak-signal robustness, but for free-text messages and relaying.
» Winlink: email over radio, store-and-forward, with internet gateways; the workhorse for formal emergency traffic.
» All run on a modest computer or even a phone tethered to the radio, so they fit a go-kit.
07Power when there is no power
A radio is only as resilient as what feeds it. Most amateur gear runs on 12 volts, which is a gift: it means batteries and solar, not the mains. A lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) pack is the modern choice, light and long-lived, and a small solar panel keeps it topped up. A handheld's own battery plus a couple of spares will get you through a day; a 12V pack and panel will keep a base station alive indefinitely.
» Standardise on 12V so every radio, light, and charger shares one power system.
» LiFePO4 for the main pack: safer and far more cycles than lead-acid for the weight.
» A folding solar panel and a simple charge controller turn sunlight into airtime.
» Lower power (QRP) plus a good antenna stretches a battery for days; power is the last thing to throw at a problem.
08Build a go-kit
A go-kit is a grab-and-run box that lets you be on the air within minutes of arriving anywhere. Keep it packed, checked, and boring, so that in a real emergency there are no surprises. Build it around a handheld first, then grow it toward HF as you gain licence privileges and experience.
1. A VHF/UHF handheld, fully charged, with two spare batteries and a charging option.
2. A better antenna than the stock 'rubber duck': a roll-up J-pole or a magnetic mount, plus a few metres of coax.
3. A printed card of local repeaters, simplex calling frequencies, tones, and key contacts.
4. A 12V power bank or LiFePO4 pack and a small solar panel.
5. Pen and a waterproof notebook for logging and messages; batteries fail, paper does not.
6. For HF later: a small radio, a wire antenna and a tuner, and a laptop or phone for digital modes.
Test the kit on a quiet weekend before you ever need it. A go-kit you have actually used in the field is worth ten you have only packed.
09Resonance, SWR, and feedline
The antenna matters more than the radio. A cheap rig on a good antenna beats an expensive one on a poor antenna every time. Three ideas carry most of the understanding. Resonance: an antenna is cut to a length that suits the frequency. SWR: a measure of how well the antenna, feedline, and radio are matched, where lower is better. And feedline: the coax between rig and antenna, which loses signal, more so when long, thin, or at higher frequencies.
» A half-wave wire dipole, the classic first antenna, is cut with a simple rule: length in metres is roughly 143 divided by the frequency in MHz, split into two equal legs fed in the middle.
10Your first antenna: a wire dipole
A dipole is two lengths of wire, a feedpoint in the middle, and some way to hold the ends up. It is cheap, forgiving, and genuinely effective. Build one for the band you want, get it as high and as clear as you can, and you are on the air.
1. Cut two legs using 143 / f(MHz) for the total, then split in half; add a little extra to trim.
2. Join them at a centre insulator with a balun or choke, and connect your coax there.
3. Support the two ends with rope to trees, poles, or the eaves, keeping the wire clear of metal and walls.
4. Measure SWR, then trim both legs equally a few centimetres at a time until SWR is lowest in your part of the band.
5. Higher is better: even a few extra metres of height noticeably improves how far you are heard.
11The TRIGUN project
TRIGUN is WarFi's own antenna project: a 20 metre tri-sector switched-beam wire antenna. The idea is to give a wire antenna some of the directional gain of a beam without a rotator or a tower full of aluminium. Three wire elements cover three sectors of the compass, and a switch selects which sector you favour, steering your signal toward where you want to be heard. It is a resilient, low-cost approach that suits a home station more than a heavy rotatable beam.
Full build notes, dimensions, the switching scheme, and real SWR and pattern measurements will land in this section as the project is documented. If you are building something similar, the dipole and measurement sections here are the right foundation to start from.
12Grounding and lightning on the coast
A coastal, lightning-prone site like Palawan makes grounding a safety issue, not an afterthought. A good station ground protects you and your gear, improves some antenna types, and quiets electrical noise. Lightning protection is about giving a strike an easy path to earth that does not run through your radio or your house.
» Bond your equipment to a single station ground point to avoid dangerous voltage differences.
» Fit coax lightning arrestors where feedlines enter the building, grounded to an outside rod.
» Disconnect antennas from the rig during storms and when the station is unattended.
» Keep ground connections short, thick, and corrosion-resistant in salt air.
13Measure, do not guess
Antenna work is where guessing wastes the most time. An antenna analyser, or at least an SWR meter, turns trial and error into a few precise cuts. It shows you where your antenna is actually resonant and how good the match is, so you trim toward a target instead of hoping.
» Trim toward the part of the band you use most, adjusting both legs equally, and recheck after every change. A dipole that reads near 1.2 across your favourite segment is doing its job.
14Why get licensed
The licence is the door to transmitting legally, but it is also where the real learning is forced into focus: the rules, the safety, enough theory to not damage yourself or the bands. It connects you to a community that will mentor you, and it earns you a callsign, your identity on the air. In the Philippines the path runs through the NTC, with the national association, PARA, supporting operators along the way.
15The NTC licence classes
Philippine amateur licences come in grades, and each step up unlocks more of the spectrum. Class D is the entry grade, centred on VHF and UHF, which is plenty to be useful locally and in emergencies. The higher classes open more of the HF bands and more power, and the top grade, Class A, additionally requires passing a Morse code element. Most operators start where they can and upgrade as their skills and interest grow.
» Class D: entry grade, mainly VHF/UHF; the fastest way to get on the air and help locally.
» Classes C and B: progressively more HF privileges and power, the bands where long distance lives.
» Class A: the highest grade, with the widest privileges, and the one that asks for Morse code.
» You keep your knowledge as you climb; each upgrade is an exam, not a restart.
16What the exam covers
Across the classes, the written exams draw from the same families of knowledge, in growing depth. Knowing the shape of it makes study far less daunting: you are not learning everything, you are learning four things well.
» Regulations: the rules of the bands, licensing, callsigns, and lawful operation.
» Operating procedures: how to make contacts, phonetics, Q-codes, nets, and band-plan courtesy.
» Radio theory and electronics: enough to understand your equipment, antennas, and signals.
» Safety: RF exposure, electrical safety, and antenna and tower work.
17Morse code for the top class
The highest class asks you to send and receive Morse code, typically at 5 words per minute. It sounds archaic until you realise why it endures: Morse gets through when nothing else will, cutting through noise and weak signals that defeat voice entirely. The key to learning it is to learn the sounds, never the dots and dashes on paper. The Koch method teaches characters at full speed from the very first lesson, adding one new character at a time once you can copy the current set. Short, daily practice beats long, occasional sessions.
» Learn by sound and rhythm, not by counting dots; count-based habits cap your speed early.
» Use the Koch method: full-speed characters, added one at a time as you master each.
» Apps like Morse Mania make daily drilling easy on a phone, a few minutes at a time.
» Consistency wins: ten minutes every day will carry you to 5 WPM faster than an hour once a week.
18Test yourself
A short practice quiz drawn from the kinds of things the exams and good operating habits expect you to know. Pick an answer for each, then check. Treat a wrong answer as the most useful kind: it shows you exactly what to read next. This is a starter set, and it will grow.
19Making your first contact
The first transmission is the hardest, and it need not be. Listen first, always, to learn the rhythm and make sure you are not interrupting. On a repeater, you can simply give your callsign and listen, or say your callsign and 'monitoring'. On simplex or HF, you call CQ, an open invitation for anyone to answer. Keep it short, say your callsign clearly, and listen.
» A simple call: 'CQ CQ CQ, this is 4I1LCT, four india one lima charlie tango, calling CQ and listening.' Then stop, and listen for a reply.
20Procedure that makes you easy to copy
Good operating is mostly about being easy to understand through noise. Two tools do most of the work: the phonetic alphabet, so your callsign survives a weak or busy channel, and Q-codes, a compact shorthand that every operator shares regardless of language. Use plain language otherwise, and always identify with your callsign.
» Phonetics (ITU): Alpha, Bravo, Charlie... spell your callsign and anything that must be exact.
» QTH: your location. QSL: received and understood. QRZ: who is calling me?
» QRM: interference from other stations. QSB: the signal is fading up and down.
» Identify with your callsign regularly; it is both courtesy and a requirement.
21Keep a log
A log is your record of who you worked, when, on what band and mode, and how the signals were. It is useful for confirming contacts, chasing awards, and simply remembering. Electronic logs also sync to online systems so other operators can confirm the contact with you.
» Record date and time (in UTC), callsign, band, mode, and signal reports both ways.
» Confirm contacts through LoTW, eQSL, or Club Log, or the traditional paper QSL card by mail.
» A tidy log turns scattered contacts into a history you can actually use.
22Nets and emergency traffic
A net is an organised on-air meeting run by a net control station, used for everything from regular check-ins to coordinating a disaster response. Nets are where amateur radio earns its keep in an emergency. The discipline is simple: let net control direct traffic, wait to be called, be brief, and pass messages exactly, word for word, without embellishment.
» Check in when net control asks for your part of the roster, then wait to be recognised.
» In an emergency, keep transmissions short and factual; the channel is shared and precious.
» Pass formal messages verbatim; accuracy saves lives, interpretation costs them.
» If you are not part of the traffic, stay off the frequency and let it work.
23Band-plan courtesy
The bands are a shared commons, kept usable by custom as much as by rule. A band plan sets aside segments for different modes, so voice, digital, and Morse are not fighting each other. Listen before you transmit, operate in the right segment for your mode, and never deliberately interfere. Good habits here are what keep the hobby welcoming and the emergency nets clear when they are needed.
Everything in this section serves the same end as the rest of WarFi: capability shared freely, used responsibly. Get licensed, build your station, practise before you need it, and you become someone others can rely on when the networks cannot.
Authorized use only. Use these tools and techniques solely on systems you own or have explicit written permission to test. Unauthorized access to computers, networks, or data is a crime in nearly every country, including the Philippines (RA 10175), the United States (CFAA), the United Kingdom (Computer Misuse Act 1990), and across the European Union (Directive 2013/40/EU). When in doubt, get permission in writing first. This is general information, not legal advice.