Validate off-grid communications systems and fieldcraft under extreme summer conditions.

• Location: Tonto National Forest, Arizona

• Duration: 36 Hours

• Weather: 85°F low / 111°F high

Explore and leverage the following technologies and skills:

• Reticulum Networks

• LoRa Radio

• VHF Packet Radio

• HF Communications

• Desert Fieldcraft

Learn how to obtain information, exchange messages, and maintain communications entirely off-grid using practical radio techniques and services.

At 0530, with the thermometer already reading 90°F, I completed one final gear check before heading out to pick up my client. Space inside the Jeep was limited, so the Bluetti power station stayed behind. As usual, every expedition begins with compromises.

Instead, we'd have to conserve power and rely on a small Anker 737 battery and top it off via a small 20-watt folding solar panel throughout the next two days.

With a few minutes to spare, and before pulling out of the driveway, I downloaded six episodes of Dark Net Diaries podcast onto my Kyocera flip phone. Backup entertainment, just in case.

I arrived at the hotel realizing I had no idea what my client looked like. As it turned out, I didn't need to. The gentleman wearing hiking boots, khaki pants, a sun shirt, glasses, a well-worn cap, and carrying a backpack that looked ready for a week in the wilderness was impossible to miss.

We loaded his ruck into the Jeep and headed toward my favorite local coffee shop.

The parking lot was nearly empty, leaving us to choose between spaces in front of the dog groomer and Granny's Got Guns. It felt like an appropriate Arizona sendoff before disappearing into the desert. We ordered two black coffees and two breakfast sandwiches, chatted briefly with the mother-and-daughter team behind the counter, paid in cash, and pointed the Jeep toward the Tonto. Breakfast could wait. We wanted to eat where the pavement ended, while the morning still offered the illusion of cool air.

By 0715, Chinaman's Hat, New River Mesa, and Ruin Ridge filled the windshield.

We paused briefly at the seasonal fire restriction sign. For most of the year, recreational shooting is perfectly legal in the Tonto, but summer in the Sonoran Desert is different. When the landscape turns to tinder, common sense takes precedence.

I shifted the Jeep into four-wheel drive.

"You may have to counterbalance that coffee," I warned.

The pavement disappeared behind us as we crawled through towering saguaro forests toward the base of Ruin Ridge.

We left the packs in the Jeep, carrying only our coffee, breakfast, and a bottle of water to a small archaeological site overlooking the valley.

Ancient petroglyphs carved into dark volcanic rock reminded us that people had been traveling this country long before roads, radios, or GPS.

We spent the next half hour getting acquainted while the desert was still forgiving.

It wouldn't stay that way.

As we descended back toward the Jeep, something interrupted our conversation with a sharp sting behind my left ear.

A wasp.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I'll deal with it back at the Jeep."

My Leatherman pulled the stinger free, and after a moment's thought I decided to skip the Benadryl. It wasn't worth trading alertness for comfort this early in the exercise.

Before unpacking a single radio, we constructed a temporary shelter using the Jeep as the primary structure.

"Want to give me a hand?"

"Absolutely."

The shelter lived inside a small Harbor Freight bag. Inside was a folded 10×10 tarp with pre-rigged guy lines complete with s-biners and taut-line hitches. The bag also contained a 4-pound hammer and a handful of aluminum tent stakes.

Five minutes later, the tarp was clipped to the Jeep's roll cage, raised with trekking poles, and tensioned into place.

In less than five minutes, we had created the most valuable piece of equipment we'd use all day.

It wasn't a radio.

With camp established, we unfolded a small camp table and two Coleman chairs.

"Would you like another cup of coffee before we get started?"

"You're offering? I'm in."

"Café Bustelo or Death Wish?"

I recommended the Bustelo instant coffee. It's become my trail coffee of choice—not because it's gourmet, but because it's inexpensive, easy to find almost anywhere, and tastes surprisingly good.

The training could wait another few minutes.

The Jetboil reached a rolling boil before I could return with our twin Panasonic FZ-M1 Mk3 field computers and Heltec v4 LoRa radios.

With fresh coffee in hand, we turned to the first objective of the day: establish a LoRa connection back to my solar-powered Reticulum node at

home.

My client connected the coiled USB cable (included in the field case) to the Heltec v4 LoRa radio and the tablet. Within seconds, EmComm Tools

(my off-grid Linux OS) reported LoRa: Connected.

From the terminal, he launched et-reticulum, selected the rnode-only blueprint, and started MeshChat.

No additional configuration.

Just plug and play.

With MeshChat up and running, we spent a few minutes exploring its basic features before moving on to the day's first real exercise.

A few days before the expedition, I had quietly prepared for this moment.

Back at my house, roughly two miles away, a small solar-powered Reticulum node was waiting. Hidden behind it was a NomadNet page I had written specifically for this exercise. Its title was simple: "TTP BBS".

Using nothing more than the Heltec v4 LoRa radio and MeshChat, he requested the page.

We waited.

Unlike Wi-Fi or cellular, LoRa doesn't reward impatience. About thirty seconds later, the first lines of plain ASCII text slowly appeared across the screen.

It wasn't flashy.

It wasn't fast.

But as the page finished rendering, explaining how to connect to my radio-only Bulletin Board System (BBS), the biggest smile of the morning crossed his face.

For anyone who remembers dialing into bulletin board systems in the early 1990s, waiting half a minute for a page wasn't an inconvenience—it was part of the experience. The only difference was that this page hadn't traveled across the Internet. It had arrived entirely over the air while operating from a saddle in the Sonoran Desert.

I handed him a small Moleskine notebook and pen.

"You're probably going to want to make a note of these connections details for later."

With the first exercise complete, it was time to introduce another piece of the network.

I reached into the back of the Jeep and pulled out a small black utility bin. Beneath its yellow lid sat two Baofeng DM-32 handhelds and a compact TTP 7" x 7" gear pouch containing a pair of DigiRig Lite interfaces and the appropriate radio cables.

A few minutes later, his handheld was programmed to 145.710 MHz, the local packet radio frequency.

We shut down MeshChat and Reticulum.

From the terminal, we ran et-radio and selected the DigiRig Lite as the radio that we wanted to use. Next, we connected the USB cable, and watched EmComm Tools confirm that the radio was detected and connected.

The next objective was to reach the radio-only bulletin board system over VHF packet radio.

From the terminal, he typed et-mode and selected Paracon, the radio-only terminal client.

Consulting the notes he had just written in his Moleskine notebook, he entered KT7RUN-7 as the node to connect to and pressed Connect.

The little LED on the Baofeng alternated between red and green as packets flowed back and forth across the air.

Like the earlier LoRa exercise, nothing happened instantly.

Then, line by line, the welcome screen appeared.

Another radio.

Another network.

Another path into another off-grid system.

Beneath the BBS welcome screen was a list of available services.

I pointed out the SWPC command first.

"If we're going to communicate hundreds—or even thousands—of miles over HF, we have to understand what the ionosphere is doing. Think of it as a giant mirror in the sky. Under the right conditions, it bends HF radio waves back toward Earth, allowing us to communicate hundreds or even thousands of miles away."

"There are some general rules on how to pick an HF frequency, but it is also good to know if there is any space weather activity that

is currently impacting HF communication."

"Go ahead," I said. "Type, swpc."

He pressed ENTER.

We waited.

Instead of the latest space weather bulletin, the screen replied with a message I had not expected.

I stroked my beard.

"That's strange."

Something was not quite working.

"Try another command."

He typed: wiki

A few seconds later the screen changed.

"Perfect!" I said.

A small wave of relief washed over me.

The radio path was working.

The bulletin board was working.

The problem was likely with the custom SWPC BBS service I wrote.

"Press 2 and search for reticulum."

He typed: reticulum.

Then...

Not solved.

The exercise had shifted from learning communications to troubleshooting them.

My BBS is fully accessible over amateur radio, but some services retrieve live information from the Internet.

I had a suspicion.

The microwave Internet link back at my house was probably down.

"No problem," I said.

"Let's focus on the radio-only services for now."

"I'll show you three other ways to get space weather later--and none of

them require the Internet."

Out here, changing the plan isn't failure.

It's fieldcraft.

With the packet connection still established, it was time for the next exercise.

I pointed to the outside pocket of his radio bag.

"Pull out the stack of field cards."

He thumbed through the laminated business card-sized references until he found the one labeled **BBS Commands**.

"Good."

"Now connect to the bulletin board system and list all of the available bulletins."

I intentionally offered no further instruction.

He typed: bbs.

And, just like that, we were connected to the BBS service.

A moment later he entered: lb.

The command to list bulletins.

One line at a time, the screen began filling with weather reports, news bulletins, and other information that had been collected and distributed over amateur radio.

No Internet browser. No search engine. Just information moving from one amateur radio station to another.

For the second time that morning, another smile appeared. The realization was beginning to sink in. There was an entire ecosystem of services available beyond the Internet.

The list of bulletins didn't stop coming! The radio's LED alternated between red (transmit) and green (receive).

Page after page, they continued scrolling across the screen.

We had forgotten to set the page size and I couldn't remember the command to change it.

The correct command was: op 15.

This limits the BBS to returning 15 lines at a time before pausing for the next command.

I made a note in my Moleskine notebook to update the field card when I returned home.

A couple of minutes later the endless scrolling of bulletins stopped. It was getting warm and we were tearing through the battery on the FZ-M1.

After reading a bulletin from S2 Underground using the command r 2083, I gave him a tour of the offline folder on the EmComm Tools desktop, which contained additional resources for offline reference. This is were we looked up the op command in the BPQ cheatsheet.

If you've enjoyed this first installment, please let me know if I should continue writing this expedition journal. My goal was to package a real-world exercise in a format that is fun to read, educates the reader, and more than anything, inspires you to get into off-grid communication.

This opening chapter covers only the first few hours of a 36-hour communications exercise. There are still two days of practical fieldcraft, off-grid communications exercises, equipment successes and failures, troubleshooting, and lessons learned waiting to be documented.

If you'd like to read the rest of the journey, please comment in the associated YouTube video. I need your help to "feed" the YouTube algorithm so that I can continue to do this full time.

This journal is dedicated to my beautiful wife, whose unwavering love and support make adventures like this possible. Thank you for encouraging me to spend time in the field, continually refining my craft, and sharing what I learn with others.

It is also dedicated to my client, whose enthusiasm, curiosity, and willingness to embrace discomfort transformed a training event into a memorable expedition. Thank you for trusting me with your time and for reminding me why I enjoy teaching so much.

Finally, thank you to every member of The Tech Prepper community. Your continued support makes these expeditions possible and allows me to document, refine, and share practical fieldcraft with others. I hope these pages inspire you to leave the pavement, test your equipment, embrace the unexpected, and discover your own lessons in the field.

Gaston KT7RUN

The Tech Prepper

"Be strong, be safe and be prepared"

Copyright © 2026 The Tech Prepper LLC.

All Rights Reserved.

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the copyright holder, except for brief quotations used in reviews or educational commentary.