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Store spare radios safely and protect equipment

If lightning, water or theft takes out the main radios, spares let the household keep talking. Store at least one spare receiver and handheld away from the main station.

How

1. Keep a spare broadcast receiver, a spare handheld radio and spare cables in a sealed, dry container away from the radio room.
2. Keep them unplugged and disconnected from antennas. CISA's EMP guidance for infrastructure lists unplugging spare equipment and wrapping spares in foil or metal (Faraday) containers as basic measures, but it gives no test data and is written for critical infrastructure, not homes.
3. CISA notes small battery devices without cables are relatively resilient, but can be disrupted if switched on or charging. Treat any EMP protection claim beyond this as unproven.
4. If you buy a shielding pouch for a spare handheld, choose a tested commercial one. In Matt Blaze's tests two commercial pouches performed well, but no improvised option did so consistently.
5. Protect the main station from lightning as in comms-14, and from damp with good ventilation.
6. Record what is stored, where, and the battery dates in the logbook, and check the store every six months alongside the maintenance calendar (living-16).

Do these first

• living-17

Sources

1. EMP Protection and Resilience Guidelines for Critical Infrastructure and Equipment. CISA, accessed 2026-11
2. Lightning Protection for the Amateur Radio Station, Part 2 (QST, July 2002). ARRL, accessed 2026-11
3. Testing Faraday cages (summary of Matt Blaze's tests, December 2021). Schneier on Security, accessed 2026-11

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