Every chapter below ships offline, illustrated, and indexed — ask the on-device AI anything in this domain and it answers with a citation to these exact pages.
The cellular network, the landline telephone, and the public Internet all depend on infrastructure that fails in regional disasters. The 2021 Texas…
Amateur radio is the single most resilient long-distance communication system available to a private homestead. It does not depend on cell towers,…
Reference document.
Reference document.
Reference document.
Reference document.
Reference document.
Reference document.
Reference document.
Reference document.
Reference document.
Reference document.
Reference document.
RTL-SDR is a very cheap ~$30 USB dongle that can be used as a computer based radio scanner for receiving live radio signals in your area (no internet…
The Channels config options are: Index, Roles, and Settings. Channel config uses an admin message sending a Channel protobuf which also consists of a…
Purpose: track licensing + provenance for every file added by the v1.1 supplement work.
It is strongly recommended to keep your ROLE set to CLIENT, CLIENTMUTE, or CLIENTBASE. Only use other roles if you have a specific, well-understood…
The device config options are: Role, Rebroadcast Mode, GPIO for User Button, GPIO for PWM Buzzer, Node Info Broadcast Seconds, Double Tap as Button…
Meshtastic firmware can be installed on a wide range of development boards. The list below provides a brief comparison of currently supported…
Voice is great for conversation, comforting in the first ten seconds of an emergency, and energy-expensive in the long run. Text-over-radio is…
When you are separated from your group, incapacitated on your property, or lost, visual and audible distress signals are your lifeline to rescuers.…
VARA is a High Performance HF modem based on OFDM modulation. VARA Modem, brings state of the art Military grade technology to new and existing…
Communication fails at the moment you need it most. A family without a practiced emergency communication plan will be confused, separated, and…
Emergency traffic handling is the discipline of moving short, accurate, structured messages through a radio network so that a recipient thousands of…
Original study notes for the US amateur Extra class license, written from scratch for Steadwise around the ten subelements of the NCVEC question pool…
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
These are original study notes for the US amateur radio General class license, organized around the ten subelements of the NCVEC (National Conference…
The General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) is an FCC Part 95 radio service that sits in the 462-467 MHz UHF band. It is licensed (one $35 license covers…
+ Damage/Fatality/Injury Statistics
+ Damage/Fatality/Injury Statistics
+ Damage/Fatality/Injury Statistics
This guide catalogs the antennas I would build or buy for a 60-acre homestead HF station, in priority order, with build notes, trade-offs, and honest…
Meshtastic® is a project that enables you to use inexpensive LoRa radios as a long range off-grid communication platform in areas without existing or…
JS8Call started as an experiment in combining the robustness of FT8 (a weak-signal mode by K1JT) with a messaging and network protocol layer for weak…
Public-domain source text.
'H' markers - Winlink Hybrid Network participants. They offer RF message forwarding if local internet links are not available.
The LoRa config options are: Region, Use Preset, Modem Preset, Max Hops, Transmit Power, Bandwidth, Spread Factor, Coding Rate, Frequency Offset,…
Radios, batteries, and solar panels can fail. When they do, a homestead survives through communication systems that require no power: bells, flags,…
Read this before anything else in the guide.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
The routing protocol for Meshtastic is designed to support all kinds of different use-cases. Most importantly, it does not assume merely static…
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Meshtastic is an open-source, long-range, low-power, off-grid text messaging system built on LoRa radio modulation. A Meshtastic node is a small…
The Meshtastic project provides a public MQTT service that users can connect to, with certain restrictions in place to ensure network stability. This…
The Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) system broadcast by NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards (NWR) sends a short digital header before each alert…
Amateur (ham) radio offers excellent off-grid communication, but requires licensing and significant equipment investment. For homesteaders seeking…
This guide is a snapshot reference compiled in 2026 for the North Texas / DFW area as context for a homestead operator in Fannin County. Repeater…
You sit on a rural parcel in Fannin County, north Texas. You need to talk to family in Dallas (65 miles), to a friend outside Austin (220 miles), to…
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
If the grid drops and stays down, can you run your radio shack on a solar system sized for a realistic homestead power budget? How big does the solar…
A radio is useless without power. Most communications systems either rely on commercial power (useless during outages) or depend on battery power…
The Baofeng UV-5R is the most affordable dual-band (VHF/UHF) radio available and the standard budget radio for off-grid communication. Without access…
Public-domain source text.
Due to aggressive automated scraping of FederalRegister.gov and eCFR.gov,
Public-domain source text.
A homestead that transmits should also listen. Transmitting is what puts you on the map for everyone else — anyone with a direction-finding receiver…
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
This wiki is intended to help identify radio signals through example sounds and waterfall images. Most signals are received and recorded using a…
North Texas sees roughly eight to ten thunderstorm days per month during the peak spring convective season (April through June) and another five to…
Hand signals are silent, don't expose your position with sound, and work when radio discipline is critical. This guide covers military-derived…
Public-domain source text.
Projector and renew or update your coordination!
An error has occurred while processing your request.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
...is a network of amateur radio and authorized government stations that provide worldwide radio email using radio pathways where the internet is not…
Winlink is a global, amateur-radio-operated email system. It lets a licensed ham station at any location on Earth send and receive internet email…
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Public-domain source text.
Steadwise's on-device AI reads these exact chapters and answers with citations — no internet, no tracking, on your desktop and your iPhone. And you can add your own material to this domain anytime.
Start your free 30 days Browse all 53 domains
STEADWISE