I had not thought about pagers much (or at all) until the Hezbollah pagers blew up recently.
Those were special order pagers, which Hezbollah unknowingly bought from an Israeli front company which put explosives and malware on the pagers that were in the hands and pockets of 4000-5000 Hezbollah terrorists, allowing Israel to detonate them on command. I think I’ll skip those pagers.
But it got me thinking about Prepping, a repeat topic here. What role could pagers play in Plan B, when the cell networks and internet go down. If it were not for the explosives (!) Hezbollah seemed to deem pagers a good low-tech means of communicating.
Is it a viable alternative? Could I get pagers for each family member and communicate that way when things fall apart?
The internet didn’t give me any clear answers. A lot of the pager gear seems no longer available.
I discussed my new-found curiosity with pagers as part of the longer podcast, where I also discussed in more detail what went down in Lebanon.
I’d really appreciate reader input.
So, pagers do exist. I’ve never had one, although I think I want one now. I’m looking into it, and I may write a blog post about this, asking for reader suggestions.I’m looking into what technology is out there for emergency purposes. Will pagers work when cell phones don’t? What alternatives are available?What I’m gathering from about 15 minutes of Googling is that the old two-way pagers aren’t really a thing anymore, where you could essentially text with somebody, but that’s what I want. So, what I’d like to do is get each family member a pager. We live hundreds of miles apart, with some living nearby, and in an emergency, this might be viable. But of course, the pager service needs to be operational, so it’s not completely independent.I am definitely looking into pagers and want to find out more about them. I’m unsure if a one-way pager would work. I’m uncertain about how that would function given what I want it to do.Pagers are relatively simple technology. They don’t run over the Internet. They use wireless and FM broadcast technology, so it’s similar to radio technology. I think the biggest group that still uses them are doctors in hospitals.Anyway, that whole thing that happened in Lebanon with the pagers and walkie-talkies should be a wake-up call to our readership and listeners that we need a Plan B. Our grid could go down, and our systems could go down, which is why I’m thinking about pagers.However, we still need to rely on the pager company. As for satellite phones, the problem is they’re very expensive.So, my parting shot is that we should not kid ourselves, we are at risk also.
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