Hey, I’m Phil!

I launched this site to help people figure out how to use Quansheng radios.

Last year, Hurricane Helene decimated parts of the US, including my home state of North Carolina.  Despite being more than 500 miles away from where the hurricane first made landfall.  Asheville saw historic flooding, leaving many without power, water, sewer, cellular/Internet connectivity, and more.

Two years before that, a train derailment in East Palestine Ohio tainted the water supply for hundreds of miles.

Long story short, stuff happens.  We live in crazy times, there’s always a chance you might lose access to food, water, shelter, septic services, Internet access, cellphones…

which is why you should have an emergency plan for your family, and that plan should include emergency communications.  I’ve got an old handcrank radio but it only receives AM/FM, it doesn’t get NOAA updates, and it’s a pain in the butt to use.

After doing a little research I finally upgraded to a modern radio – the Quansheng UV-K5(99) – and I’m glad I did.  It’s easy to carry and much more versatile than old hand-crank radios.  And it charges via USB-C! Yay!

The only problem is it’s hard to use and the documentation is less than stellar (to put it nicely).

I created this blog to document my foray into handheld radios.  I’m going to start out with Quansheng radios since that’s what I bought, but I’ll cover adjacent topics as well. If you have any specific topics you’d like me to cover, let me know. Thanks for stopping by!

Phil