Talking on the radio

Every survivor carries a two-way radio. Hold CAPS to talk on it, or open the walkie (F1 by default) and hold the orange PTT key on its side. The MODE key chooses what you transmit on, and the display shows which one it's set to.

• SQD is your squad's private, encrypted net. Only your squad hears it, and you only need a charged radio in your pack. A squad member's walkie starts here.
• DIAL is the frequency on the display. Switch the radio on and tune it to VHF, and anyone whose radio is on that frequency and within range hears you, whether they're in your squad or not. You can pick your own channel, or talk on a station's frequency, such as Survivor Net on 146.5 or Guard on 121.5, and the people tuned there hear you over the broadcast.
• RX ONLY means the band only listens. FM is broadcast radio, and a handheld can't transmit on shortwave, even with the extended antenna that lets it listen there.

Range

A handheld on VHF reaches about 2.2 miles over open, flat ground. Hills and ridges between you cut that hard, and so do tall buildings, while being inside, underground or in a storm costs range at your own end. Height is the best thing you can give a radio: from a hilltop, a roof or an aircraft you can talk several times as far. The extended antenna adds about half as much range again. Close in, a voice is clean. Further out it gets hissy and words drop out, and past the edge the squelch never opens and you hear nothing at all.

The table radio at Haven is a base station on a mast. It reaches more than 6.2 miles on VHF, and base stations are the only sets that can transmit on shortwave. Haven's repeater on 147.3 passes on everything it hears, so two handhelds that are too far apart to hear each other can still talk through it from up to about 8.1 miles around Haven. A radio on Mars can't reach Earth.

Your own base radio

Build a Base Radio at your base, run a cable to it from the base's power, then look at it and choose Use the radio. It works like the table radio at Haven: it needs no battery, it transmits on VHF and shortwave, and it reaches about 6.2 miles from its own mast. Set it on high ground or a roof and it reaches further, and a Cable Pole beside it carries the antenna higher still. Its six memory keys and its dial stay with the set, and its MODE key puts your base's people on your squad net through it, without a handheld.

Without power the set is dead. Its screen stays dark and says NO POWER until a generator, solar panels, a wind turbine or the batteries feed it again. Anyone standing at it can tune it and talk, but only the base's own people (the builder, the people on the cupboard's list and the builder's squad) can store its memory keys, and nobody else can use it while the base is under attack.

Like a real radio

• Only one person talks on a frequency at a time. If someone in range is already transmitting, the frequency is busy: your radio gives a short blip and won't key up. Wait for their squelch tail and roger beep, then answer. Two people who can't hear each other can still talk at once, and anyone between them hears both of them garbled.
• You can't hear anyone while you're holding the key.
• MON opens the squelch, so a weak, distant voice comes through under heavy static instead of not at all. Press it again to close it.
• The red TX lamp lights while you transmit, and the green RX lamp lights while someone is coming in. The signal bars show how strong they are. A squadmate's voice shows their name, but a stranger is only a voice.
• Transmitting runs the battery down several times faster than listening, and a flat radio can't transmit at all.
• A gas mask muffles your voice on the radio too. The dead can hear a radio's speaker, so carry an earpiece if you want the traffic in your ear.

Agree on a frequency before you split up, and say who you are when you call, because anyone on that frequency can listen in. Only the squad net is private.