Daniel Conderman 
(Ham, CB, GMRS—If You Can Turn a Knob and Hear Static, You’re One of Us)
You’re busy perfecting your artisanal jam that’s derived from the single tear of a Siberian mountain goat. Adorable, truly. You spend your evenings gluing rhinestones onto vintage ashtrays for your Etsy store. So sweet. You even have 37 different sizes of crocheted hats for your cat… in pastel colors. That’s great.
But come The Great Collapse? The day our once-mighty power grid sputters and fizzles like a deflated beach ball? You’ll find your craft-fair dreams crumbling into a biodegradable mess. And I—armed with a battered handheld transceiver (or a CB rig or a GMRS walkie or maybe just a ridiculous homemade antenna from my junk drawer)—will remain oddly serene.
Because I’m a radio operator. Ham, CB, GMRS—it’s all the same wild frontier: the open airwaves. Some might say “radio enthusiast,” but that suggests I do it for fun. I don’t. I do it to be the last voice on Earth shouting “Copy that, Bigfoot on Channel 19!” before I pop open another can of discount chili beans.
You’ll Be Offering Birdhouses to the Warlord; I’ll Be Intercepting Signals from Saturn
In the post-apocalyptic free-for-all, you’ll try to charm the warlord with your adorable crocheted cat hats:
“This one’s in teal! It’s totally your color. Please don’t feed me to your pet hyenas.”
The warlord, unsmiling, might wear the hat for a moment—just for fun—but your fate will still be… let’s say, precarious. Meanwhile, I’ll be shoulder-deep in my makeshift bunker, flipping switches like a mad scientist, dialing into frequencies NASA forgot existed, whether that’s a ham repeater, a CB channel, or some weird GMRS net. My life becomes an ‘80s sci-fi movie, and guess what? I’m the protagonist with the big headphones and cooler lines.
Radio: The Only Hobby That Looks Like a Mistake Until the World Ends
Let’s be honest: until the cataclysm, radio seems like an old man’s pastime—like collecting state quarters or yelling at clouds. People roll their eyes. They see you stringing up a 30-foot wire or a CB whip or stacking your GMRS walkie-talkies in the garage and say, “We have FaceTime for that. Why are you messing with a 1940s phone booth that glows in the dark?” But after doomsday, you’ll see me morph into a spectral presence who can talk to anyone, anywhere, even if they’re huddled under a rock in Siberia. It’s that immediate jump from “quirky” to “divine oracle.”
Meanwhile, Your Router Is Feeling… Left Out
When the Wi-Fi goes down, your life hits a wall. Your fridge-of-the-future that orders milk automatically? Offline. That streaming service you had queued up for cat yoga videos? Gone. Your phone’s a fancy flashlight and your TV’s a black mirror of existential dread.
Me? I have a closet of vacuum tubes, a battery that could power a small tractor, and an unhealthy affection for faint static. I’ll whisper to my radios at 3 a.m. like they’re lost lovers, waiting for the slightest crackle that might be Gary in Des Moines, or some trucker named ThunderHawk on Channel 9, or a GMRS group passing chatter about mutated boars in the next county.
Weekly Net Check-Ins: Like a Book Club, But for Surviving the Apocalypse
Every Thursday at 7 p.m., I join my crew. We don’t use Zoom backgrounds of tropical islands or cat ears. We’re on a net check-in—like an invisible pub where we trade rumors of mutated raccoons and the best late-night frequencies to rant on.
It goes something like this:
- Station 1: “Anyone got traffic?”
- Station 2: “Negative. Just a solar flare messing with signals. Also, Dale’s windmill collapsed. He’s fine, though.”
- Me: “10-4 on that. I’ll pass it along. Also, I heard the new currency is salted peanuts.”
We sign off with “73” (ham lingo for “best regards”) or maybe a cheerful “10-7” from the CB side, set our sets to standby, and feel a little less alone in the cosmic wilderness.
Your Antidepressants Need an Internet Connection; My Morphine Is Morse Code
It’s a bit bleak, but let’s face it: everything’s bleak if the grid goes dark. The difference is, I’ve got a fallback. Morse code is my therapy. Or maybe I’ll pass the time flipping between channels on the old CB or GMRS—anything that crackles back. If things get truly dire, I’ll beep SOS until my fingers cramp, broadcasting it across the planet like an off-key symphony.
Meanwhile, you’ll be trying to figure out how to turn your decorative soy candles into a heat source. (Hint: you can’t. Not effectively, anyway.)
Your Instagram Filters vs. My Faraday Cage
You might have a perfectly curated feed that made you 17.5K followers, half of whom are bots. I have a Faraday cage for the day an EMP hits. You might think: “That’s paranoid.” But paranoia starts to look a lot like preparation when the sky lights up purple and the electronics have a mass funeral.
It’s Not Just a Hobby; It’s a Full-Blown Apocalypse Personality
My call sign? Tattooed on my heart—well, not literally, but give me time and the right brand of mania. I sleep with my radio under my pillow. My nightmares all revolve around dead air: total silence where even the crackle of static refuses to comfort me.
Radio—ham, CB, GMRS, or any band in between—is, by definition, uncool. But guess what else was uncool until it became vital? Fire. Wheels. Eyeglasses. At some point in history, each was probably greeted with a raised eyebrow and a condescending shrug. Yet here we are.
So, Honestly… What’s Your Plan?
If your plan involves your phone, an app, or something that demands electricity you don’t personally generate, then good luck. I’ll be happily squatting in my underground fortress, a can of ravioli in one hand, a mic in the other, whispering sweet nothings onto a frequency that bounces off the ionosphere.
And if you ever hear a crackly voice in the darkness saying, “No traffic,” that’s me. Signifying that, for another day, I’m alive. I’m still weird. And I’m still hogging the airwaves like they’re my personal diary.
Final Thought
While you scramble to keep your sourdough starter from spontaneously combusting—or suiciding, whichever comes first—I’ll be fine. Ready. Talking with Gary in Des Moines about the latest mutated boars or the trucker codenamed RoadKill Slim about the road conditions near Mile Marker 285. Building new antennas from old furniture and a deep-seated fear of loneliness. And loving every minute of it, because in the end, radio isn’t about technology. It’s about the pure, stubborn refusal to let the airwaves go quiet—no matter what kind of radio you’ve got in your hands.
73, 10-4, & Over and Out.
